His Freaking Kids
by 8sword
Summary: Jesus, the school should just have a parking spot labeled, "Reserved for the Novak-Winchesters," because Dean's getting sick of having to cruise around the parking lot looking for a spot every time he gets a call from the principal about Emma.
1. Chapter 1

**an: **written on tumblr for domesticlifeofghosts, who wanted fic of Emma and Claire being awkward stepsisters.

**pairing:** Dean/Cas

**warnings**: language, homophobic slurs

- o -

Jesus, the school should just have a parking spot labeled, "Reserved for the Novak-Winchesters," because Dean's getting sick of having to cruise around the parking lot looking for a spot every time he gets a call from the principal about Emma.

It's like the kid doesn't know the meaning of "under the radar," although to be fair secretly he wouldn't have it any other way. Things had been downright uncomfortable those first few months after Seattle, her staying carefully quiet in the backseat and trying to play Invisible Girl like if Dean didn't notice she was there he wouldn't send her away, and shit, it still stings to remember that time, but what's done is done, and Em's a smart-ass now, has a sassy answer for everything, especially if it means making Cas hide a smile behind his hand or Claire choke on her morning Multi-Grain Cheerios. It's been suggested that Claire start wearing a bib at mealtimes because Emma always seems to make her spit something out, but Claire refuses to do it unless Emma wears a bib too (which would make Dean' s freaking day, seriously). But Emma's dug up what she calls a fashion sense from somewhere and refuses, so Dean's just settled for buying the cheap plastic Dollar Tree tablecloths that guffaw in the face of spit-out milk. The ugly patterns remind him of all the god-awful motels he and Sam have stayed in over the years, so maybe he doesn't mind them quite as much as he pretends, but half the fun is complaining when Emma makes a comment about her gym teacher's plum-snugglers and spaghetti noodles splurt out of Claire's nose and end up spattered across half the table.

(It's also kind of worth it to see Cas look down in bemusement at the noodle clinging to his tie.)

But anyway. The school's round-bellied resource officer strides out of the office building and gets into his patrol car where it's parked right in front of the front office. Dean sighs in relief as it pulls away, first because he has somewhere to park now and second because the cop leaving means Emma didn't break any laws this time, which is never a given. Thank God Sammy finally got his law degree.

He parks Baby and climbs out, swiping his hands down his stained jeans. He hadn't bothered to change other than to pull a jacket on over his t-shirt when he left the garage; he and Principal Chan are on pretty informal terms by now, have been since Emma and Claire started high school two years back.

"All right," he says as he pulls open the office door, already deciding that Emma's losing stereo privileges for two weeks this time instead of one. "What'd she do this time?"

The secretary, Ms. Costanza, who usually has a rueful smile ready for him, looks worried as she stands from her desk, which is Dean's first clue something's up. Second is Principal Chan leaning out of her office with a bag of ice in her hand saying, "Please come in, Mr. Winchester."

And Dean frowns at the bag of ice as he follows Chan, 'cuz if it was a fight and Emma let someone get the better of her maybe it's time to start sparring with his kids more frequently, 'cuz there's civilian and then there's wuss, and no kid of his is gonna get beat up by some snot-nosed— Holy shit, it's not Emma sitting in the Guilty Student Chair.

"Claire?" he blurts out.

She looks back at him, eyes red-rimmed and miserable above the bag of ice she's got clutched over her nose. Her face is white and panicked; he's half afraid she's going to pass out, remembers how Sammy hyperventilated that one time he got sent to the principal's office, terrified that he'd blown his chances at going to college, and Claire's like Sammy that way, has Princeton posters plastered on her bedroom walls and freaks out when she gets B's, and before Dean knows it he's crouching in front of her, saying, "Hey. Hey, sweetheart, it's okay, deep breath, all right?"

Claire takes a shuddering breath and pulls the ice carefully from her nose and holy shit had whoever punched her had one hell of a right swing.

He spins on Chan as she sits behind her desk. "The fuck happened to my kid?"

Chan's used to Dean's language, sighs. "As far as we can understand, she got into a fight during lunch. But—" Her eyes go to Claire, her voice gentle. "Claire isn't seeing fit to tell me anything else."

"Id won'd happed agaid," is all Claire says, nasal and muffled around her bag of ice. Dean plops down in the chair next to her, pulls it close to get an arm around her shoulders, 'cuz he remembers that look from Sammy, too, the inches-from-tears-I-just- wanna-go-home look.

"All right," he says. "All right, I'm taking you home." He turns a finger on Chan as they get up to leave. "But you. My kid gets hurt on school property one more time, there'll be hell to pay."

"I'm familiar with the threat," Chan says dryly, though her expression is still concerned as she watches Claire. "Don't forget to sign her out with Ms. Constanza."

Dean ignores her, because seriously, she's lucky Cas wasn't the one to come here and find Claire like this because there's hell-to-pay and then there's heavenly wrath, and Cas is still scarily good at the latter. He shoves through the door, arm still around Claire. She switches hands for the bags as he signs her out, and he notices what he didn't before: one of her knuckles is split, the skin red and angry.

Huh.

Claire catches him looking at it and quickly switches hands again. But the damage is done, and Dean's not sure whether to feel proud or even angrier: his kid got in a fight. Well, not his kid, technically, but as good as, especially since he's the one who taught her how to throw a punch in the first place, but shit. What the heck could Claire be getting into fights about? What could possibly make her risk the Princeton dream?

Also, where the hell was Emma? He's got half a mind to pull her out of class early so he can demand where the hell she was while her sister was getting the snot beaten out of her by some punk.

They get in the Impala, Claire putting the ice in her lap long enough to buckle her seatbelt, and Dean watches her, hands on the wheel, tries to figure out what to say. If he should say anything, or if maybe this is one of those teenager things Jody Mills warned him about that he should just let be. He's really tempted to let Cas deal with it, considers digging out his phone and handing it to Claire so she can call him, 'cuz Cas is just better at talking to both of the girls, or maybe it's not so much that he's good at talking to them as he is good at listening, but Jesus. Dean tightens his hands on the steering wheel. "…we gonna talk about this, Claire?"

She glances over at him. It's still weird, sometimes, having Cas's eyes look over at him out of her face, and today she looks like Cas did in those weeks after the asylum, scared and broken and sad.

But her voice is firm when she says thickly, "Dope," and pats his hand. Consolingly, like he's the little kid and she's the parent, and fuck, sometimes it hurts how mature she is, hurts to know that he and Cas are the reason why. Hurts, too, that she never seems to blame them.

"I never said sorry to you, you know," he says as he starts the car. Easier to say it when his eyes are on the road, when he doesn't have to look at her. "I mean… You never asked for any of this, and even if things had been—normal, it's still no walk in the park, getting, y'know. Saddled with a pair of gays for dads."

He makes his voice joking, says it like it's a joke. But it still twinges. He and Cas had known when they moved here with Sam that things weren't going to be easy. Two dudes playing house together in South Dakota? It was the north, but it sure as hell wasn't Massachusetts. They'd known it wouldn't be easy for them, but he'd never thought how it would be for Claire and Emma. Hadn't thought about how kids can be mean, can be stupid, can punish the child for the sins of the father and all that jazz, and shit.

"Dean, you're dot," Claire begins thickly, but Dean shakes his head. "All I'm saying is, I know it must not be easy for you. Dealing with that. So. Thanks."

Claire doesn't say anything, just sniffles against the bag of ice, and Dean keeps his eyes on the road, hands her one of the only slightly oil-smeared rags he's still got hanging out of his pocket. She mumbles, "Dhanks," and he reaches over, ruffles her hair. Smiles when she leans into his hand because, seriously. His fucking kids, man.

- o -

Except his fucking kids is exactly the right way to describe them, because dinner's at six every night, yeah, they've gotten domestic like that; Cas does the cooking and Dean does the dishes, except the nights he manages to make it part of Emma's punishment for something or other, but it's six-fifteen and Emma's still not home from school, and he's not sure whether to be ticked or worried out of his mind because where the hell is his kid.

And he calls Sam, and he calls Jody, and he calls Emma's friend's mom Shelly who has no clue who he is and none of them have seen Emma, except then there's the sound of a key in the back door, and he's on his feet in an instant, snapping the phone closed.

Emma looks up from trying to ease the door shut behind her, and above her black jacket her face is caked with concealer two shades too dark and Dean didn't spend thirty-odd years getting the shit kicked out of him by various monsters not to recognize a bruise when he saw one.

Things click together.

"All right," he says, loud enough to be heard in the dining room. "Family meeting in the living room. Now."

And once they're all settled there, Dean with his feet planted in front of the fireplace scowling, Cas perched on the arm of the loveseat looking solemnly disappointed and Emma hunched in the armchair glaring at her boots and Claire with her knees drawn up to her chin on the sofa, nose blaring purple in the lamplight, Dean's quite happy to hand the reins over to Cas, because shit, he's been dealing with this all day, and on top of that he totally gave Cas at least the second best blowjob of his life last night, so Cas kind of (really) owes him.

"It appears," says Cas in his slow, reproachful way that makes the girls squirm and Dean smirk darkly now that he's not on the receiving end of it, for once, "that the two of you felt compelled to hurt each other."

He pauses, eyeing each of them in turn. Claire hangs her head; Emma bristles.

"What I do not understand is what could have driven the two of you to feel that treating each other in this way was permissible. Is there, perhaps, a siren in the vicinity that Dean and I do not know about?"

Emma's the first to talk. "I said some shit," she tells the floor. "Claire punched me for it. 's no big deal, we're fine now. Can I go now?"

"No," Dean says immediately. "What'd you say?"

Emma steals a glance at Claire from beneath her hanging hair that's so quick Dean would've missed it if he wasn't watching her so closely. It's not so different from how Claire looked earlier that day, scared and panicked.

"You don't wanna know, okay," she mutters.

"Emma—"

"I said we're fine, okay?" she snaps, and Dean does, too.

"Fine, huh?" he says. "Yeah, cuz Claire's nose looks real fine, Emma!"

Emma whirls on him. "You know, I'm getting sick of being the black sheep of this family! It's always Emma, why can't you be like Claire this; Emma, what'd you do now that that—well, sorry I'm not an angel vessel, Dad. Sorry you didn't just pop me on a bus when you had the chance!"

She stops, panting hard. Then,

"Fags," she says. "My friends called you fags, and I laughed and went along with it. And I feel like shit for it, okay, but they're my friends and I'm not like you, Claire, I can't go out and bat my big blue eyes and magically make people want to eat lunch with me. Fuck you."

"Fug you," Claire bursts out, her words still messed-up by her nose. "I'b your friend, Ebba. Or I would be if you didn'd keep being sugch a bigch ad school and predending like you don't dow be."

Emma doesn't say anything. Just glares back at Claire, and maybe they would stand like that forever, glaring at each other, if Cas didn't say in his most gravelly voice, "Enough," and step between them.

"Dean," he says, and Dean snaps out of it, steps forward.

"Hey," he says, points a hand at Emma. "C'mon. You and me."

- o -

When the screen door's bounced shut behind them, he digs his keys out of his pocket and tosses them to Emma. Jerks his head toward the Impala in the driveway, starts down the porch steps. "Let's go for a drive."

She looks at the keys in her hand, not moving from the top step. "This doesn't make up for anything," she says balefully.

Dean lifts a brow. "Really?"

Emma takes one step, then two. "Well." She opens the driver's side door. "Maybe a little." She waits until they're both in the car, buckled in, with the engine purring around them, to say, "I still think you should trade her in for a Yaris."

Dean slaps a hand over his heart. "Em, it's stuff like that that makes me wonder if you're really Sam's spawn."

She stiffens, and immediately Dean realizes his big mouth fucked up again. "Thanks, Dad. I really love when you make jokes about how I'm not your kid."

Dean opens his mouth—

"No, shut up," she says. "I understand, like, you didn't want to procreate with a monster. I get it. But it would be really nice if you could stop rubbing it in my face."

And it's official. Dean sucks.

"Shit," he hears himself say. "Shit. Emma. I'm sorry. I didn't… Just. Shit. You're my kid, okay?"

She tosses her head, gives a thin laugh. "No shit, Sherlock."

"No, I mean—" He shakes his head. "You know how happy it makes me when people look at you and say, "Damn, Dean, she's just like you"? And I feel so proud of you, like that's my kid. And then other times people are like, "I can't believe she's your kid, Dean," because they can't see me in you and that makes me even prouder because you're fifty times better than I ever was. You've turned out so good, Em."

Emma's got her hands on the steering wheel, looking straight ahead. "But I'm not what you wanted."

"That doesn't mean you're not what I want now." Dean leans forward, ducks his head into her line of sight until she has to look at him. "Hey. You think I wanted Cas when I first met him?"

"Didn't you?"

"Fuck no. He was a dick with wings."

She smiles for the first time since he caught her trying to sneak inside, bruise dark on her cheek. "Sounds kinky."

Dean groans. "That's it, you're never Skyping with Becky again."

Emma smiles a secretive smirk and reverses out of the driveway, and as they argue whether to go get milkshakes or gelati, Dean makes a mental note to check the parental controls on the internet at home. But not before he glances over at her, elbow hanging out the window in the night wind, and says, "We good?"

"For now," Emma says. She's got her window open, too, hair whipping around her face.

"Good, 'cuz you're grounded for a week."

"What?!"

"You just ran that stop sign back there. In my baby."

"Dad! It's like deserted out here, there was no one else at the intersection—"

"Keep arguing and it'll be two."

"Ugh!" Emma lets out a growl of frustration and retaliates by turning the radio up full-volume to some Top 40 crap station. When Dean growls back and reaches out to change it, she slaps his hand away and shouts over Justin Bieber and the wind, "SHOTGUN SHUTS HIS CAKEHOLE!"

And shit, Dean can't help but laugh.

- o -

[epilogue]

He feels a little less like laughing when he gets around to checking those parental control filters at home and finds out that actually most of the freaky-deak Archive of Our Own visits have been from Claire's computer, not just Emma's, which just goes to show, it really is always the quiet ones.

He clicks on one of the links, just to see what they've been up to, and blanches.

"YOU'RE BOTH GROUNDED," he shouts.

"STOP INVADING OUR PRIVACY YOU COMMUNIST," Emma yells back from upstairs.

There's the lower murmur of Claire saying something, and then an explosion of laughter. A message pops up on the laptop screen that Dean does not have the administrator privileges to control the parental filters on this network.

"Damn it, girls," Dean mutters.

"It's nice to see them enjoying themselves," Cas observes from his armchair.

"Ugh," says Dean with a shudder, pushing away from the desk and flopping onto Cas in the armchair instead. His legs dangle over the side; Cas pushes a hand into his hair. "Seriously, what's the appeal of that stuff?"

"Would you rather they be out there having sex instead of reading about it?" Cas says.

"On second thought," says Dean, "never mind."


	2. Chapter 2

**an**: I have a few more ficlets set in this stepsisters 'verse. They have some basis in my Purgatory AU "What Fun It All Would Be" but it isn't necessary to read that fic to understand this one. If you have any ideas for other things you would like to see the Winchester-Novaks do, just leave a review. (A de-aged fic is already being written.) Thank you for reading!

**pairing**: Dean/Cas

**warnings**: language

* * *

"Honey, I'm home!" accompanies the sound of the front door opening and keys jangling their way into the bowl in the front hall. Castiel "hmm"s an absent greeting, squinting through his reading glasses at the e-mail one of his TAs just sent him, until a palm lands on his shoulder. It presses down, sweeps down the line of Castiel's clavicle over his shirt to close around his loosened tie, one of the many Emma gave him for Christmas.

"So I had an awesome idea," Dean says into his ear, low. His breath is warm and smells of the apple-flavored candies he sucks on in the afternoons at the garage. "What say we leave the girls to order pizza and head to the Regal?"

Castiel tilts his head so that Dean's mouth can better reach the skin beneath his collar. "There is a film you wish to see?"

Dean's lips travels down, from Castiel's tragus down to the angle of his jaw. "More like there's a new Disney movie out, and since no respectable parent takes their kids to the movies on a Monday night we'll have the whole theatre to ourselves," he says, and his smile curves against Castiel's neck.

It sounds very appealing. Except...Castiel puts a hand on Dean's shoulder. "We're watching JB for Sam and Amelia tonight."

Dean goes still. Lets his head flop down onto Castiel's shoulder. "Shit. I forgot."

"Clearly," Castiel says wryly, then nuzzles Dean's head with his chin, trying to indicate that he may resume his earlier activities involving Castiel's neck. Dean bolts upright instead, hand hastily patting his jacket pocket for his keys. "Crap, was I supposed to pick him up from school? It's way past four, he's gonna be freaking out-"

Castiel catches his belt loops as he takes off for the door, pushes his knee just so behind Dean's so that his leg gives out and he stumbles backward, onto the desk chair and Castiel.

"Dude, Cas," he complains, and tries to pull free, but Castiel still has his finger hooked through his belt loops; Dean isn't going anywhere. "I love you too, man, but I gotta go get JB before his teacher freaks and calls Sam-"

"The girls volunteered to pick him up," Castiel says.

Dean stops struggling. Wriggles around to look at him as the chair squeaks warningly beneath them. "Uh huh."

"I may have agreed to let them take my car," Castiel says.

Dean rolls his eyes. "Then of course they volunteered," he mutters. Claire has had her license for two months now, Emma has had her permit for one, and Dean has discussed with Cas fixing up one of Bobby's old cars for them to drive so that they can stop begging Cas to let them drive his, since no way are they putting a hand on Dean's baby before they've had at least three years of driving experience. "And that's_human_ years, Emma," he'd said when Emma opened her mouth. "Which one's driving?"

"I did not ask," Castiel says serenely, because if Dean finds out that Emma is the one driving, he will fret and maybe even take the Impala to follow them home to make sure nothing happens, which will frustrate Emma, who will in turn lash out at Dean, and Castiel would like to have a peaceful Monday night rather than one in which Emma sulks in her bedroom with her CDs blaring and Dean sulks in the garage with his record player blaring and Castiel and Claire are left to share an awkward silence in the living room.

"Hmph," says Dean, and pulls out his phone.

Castiel eyes it as Dean pulls up Emma's number. "If she is the one driving, you should not distract them from the road by calling her."

"If she's driving she knows to let Claire answer the phone for her," Dean counters, and brings the phone to his ear.

Castiel leans in, breathing out ever so faintly against Dean's earlobe and along his auricle. Dean shivers, shoulder hitching up for the briefest moment, and in that moment, Castiel slips his phone from his hand.

"Wha-Cas!" Dean's head snaps around; he looks at Cas with wide eyes that quickly narrow. Castiel just smiles at him, holding the phone to his own ear, the one further from Dean. "Perhaps you should let me ask whatever question you wanted answered."

Dean huffs something that sounds like "dick," but turns to make himself more comfortable, draping an arm over the back of the chair and digging his chin into Castiel's shoulder, which brings him close enough to hear through the earpiece-and he knows it, too, if the little _so there _smirk he gives Castiel is any indication, but Castiel learned a long time ago that when it comes to Dean, he has to pick his battles.

The ringing on the other end of the phone cuts off abruptly, is replaced by the sound of laughter and loud music that is quickly turned down. "Hello?"

"Emma," Castiel says. "It is Cas." Belatedly, he adds, "tiel."

Emma snickers at the same time Dean snorts against Castiel's shoulder. "No duh, Cas," he mutters as Emma says, "Yeah, Cas, I know it's you, you're the only person with a sex operator voice who calls my phone."

Castiel is not quite sure how to respond to this, hears Claire's voice in the background saying, "That's a lie, I call you all the time," and two bursts of laughter, and in their midst, JB's voice saying warily, "Is this one of those things Dad said I'm not allowed to ask about?"

When the laughter on the other end of the line has died down enough for him to be heard, Castiel says, "Emma." He hesitates, immediately hears the tone of the silence on the other end shift. Emma is like her father that way, always expecting the worst.

"Wait a second," she says suddenly, before he can continue. Her voice is taut now, instead of loose with amusement. "Did you call to see which of us was driving? Oh my God, Dad put you up to this, didn't he? Claire's the one driving, God, I'm not going to drive on my month-old permit when my nine-year-old cousin's in the car, Cas, why can't he stop assuming I'm an _idiot_-"

"Emma," says Castiel. She stops. "I was calling to ask if I left my cell phone in the car. I appear to have misplaced it."

"...oh." Emma's voice is short, and mortified in the way he only recognizes because Emma gets mortified the same way Dean does: with gruffness and clipped words. "Uh, we'll look for it."

"Thank you," Castiel says, and pushes away his own feelings of guilt at the deception to raise a _do you see_ eyebrow at Dean. Dean's gaze skitters away, his jaw tightening. His chin digs harder into Castiel's shoulder as he stares at the wall over Castiel's shoulder, but Castiel doesn't think he realizes he's doing it, nor letting out the tight breath that touches the back of Castiel's neck. "We will see you soon."

"Wait!" comes a voice through the phone. It's JB's; apparently Emma has handed the phone off. "Uncle Cas, can you make hamburgers for dinner?"

Castiel can't help smiling at this, and nor, he sees, can Dean, at whose lips a faint smile is now tugging despite the crease of his brow. Sam's son loves red meat with a passion that delights Dean, and his favorite food after Claire's cinnamon rolls are the hamburgers Castiel learned to make on the grill Dean bought them for Father's Day two years ago.

But a voice intercedes before he can say _of course._ Emma's, saying, "Sorry, kiddo, no can do. Mondays are spaghetti nights."

"But!" JB whines.

"Dude, we have like three leftover hamburgers in the fridge," Emma's voice says, still distant and tinny in the background. "You can have one of those."

"But I want them fresh!" JB protests. "It's not fair, Emma, you get to eat Uncle Cas's burgers whenever you want, I only get them _sometimes_!"

"Claire, you gonna help me out with this?" Emma's voice demands. "I'm sticking up for your spaghetti rights here." Because spaghetti is Claire's favorite dinner, has been since before...well, everything, Castiel remembers that much from his vessel, remembers Amelia making it on Monday nights with special meatballs because she said Mondays were hard days and spaghetti and meatballs was a good way to make a hard day special. Castiel had forgotten that, and he feels cowed, now, guilty that he did not take it into consideration.

"Hang on." Dean sits up, pushing away from Castiel's shoulder to take the phone. "I have an awesome idea." He meets Cas's eyes, and his gaze is understanding and tender and protective and excited all at once as he pushes a hand through Castiel's hair. "Two words: spaghetti hamburgers."

There's a moment of silence. Then a chorus of gagging noises and "_Ew_, Uncle Dean" and Dean grins, pulls his hand through Castiel's hair to cup the back of his head, says, "Fine, you losers, then get home and you can have soggy leftovers," and hangs up, and pulls Castiel's head back to kiss him.

"We're doing okay," he murmurs a few minutes later, or maybe Castiel murmurs it to him, but either way, maybe they are, because when the key scrapes in the front door and footsteps tromp inside, JB comes stomping into the kitchen to show Uncle Cas how his new shoes light up when he steps, and Claire grins a _what are you going to do_ at Castiel from behind him, and Emma's got the Piggly-Wiggly bag and she plunks a box of thin spaghetti noodles and a bag of frozen meatballs and a package of hamburger buns down on the counter next to where Dean's got mac'n cheese fixings out. She sort of half-glares up at him and mutters, "You weren't joking, right?"

Dean stares at her a minute, and then breaks into a grin the beauty of which Castiel can still taste along his teeth. "Kiddo," he says, "I never joke about food."


	3. Chapter 3

**an:** Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed. I tremendously appreciate it! This installment is inspired partly by Flutiebear's tumblr post on Krissy Chambers. You'll see why.

**brief explanation**: I'm sorry for the confusion, I forgot how confusing this 'verse is-basically it's just set in some very non-existent AU in which Emma goes with Dean and Sam after "Slice Girls" (7.13) rather than getting killed by them. Eventually they join up with Cas, and some unspecified amount of time later, Amelia Novak is killed, and Claire Novak ends up with Dean, Cas, and Emma. Meanwhile, Sam gets married to Amelia Richardson and they have a son, J.B.

I do have a vague idea of how Claire ends up with Dean and Cas that may or may not get written. We'll see. Totally open to suggestions if anyone has any about how Claire ends up with them, though.

- o -

Castiel is writing that week's conjugations on the white board when his cellular phone buzzes once in his blazer pocket. It is most like a text message from Dean, who often sends him emoticon-filled texts when he is bored at the garage, so Castiel ignores it and continues with the lesson, trying not to sigh at the numerous and varied pronunciation errors of his FRE2201 class as they struggle, line by line, through _Le Vampire_.

At ten till, he waits for Joseph Watts to finish mangling "_ton esclavage maudit_" before he clears his throat. "I will see you all next class for your recitations. Please come to my office hours tomorrow afternoon if you would like to practice ahead of time. _Á demain._"

"_Á demain_," they echo back dutifully, except Joseph, who says, "_Á bientôt,_" with what Dean would probably call a shit-eating grin, and Martin Sednick, who is still sleeping on top of his copy of _Au Trésors._

Castiel leaves Martin to it, following his students out into the brisk March air. He reaches into his pocket with one hand, hitching the messenger bag Emma and Claire bought him for Christmas more securely over his other shoulder. He is smiling slightly, anticipating whatever Dean has sent him, but instead, as the screen activates under his thumb, he feels one of those figurative swoops of his insides that will never fail to feel unpleasantly alien, no matter how long he has been human. Because the text isn't from Dean, it is from Claire, and it reads only,

**call m**

Unlike Dean,Claire rarely texts him while he is at his place of employment. Rarely texts him at all, actually, and the messages he has seen on Dean's phone from her are always neatly punctuated and capitalized. This message, with its lower case letters and cut-off nature, alarms him. Which is why, he realizes, his pace has become nearly a run as he cuts across the plaza toward the faculty parking lot and holds his phone to his ear, already dialing Claire's number.

There is no answer. Just a succession of rings and then the recording Emma put on Claire's voicemail: "Hey, you've reached Claire's phone, which means you're probably looking for help with your homework. She charges ten dollars for math assignments, twenty for essays-"

Castiel hangs up. Tries again. His insides are swooping more violently now, banking hard like a winged thing trying to land on a very small space. Again, no answer.

By now he is at the parking lot; he squeezes into his Honda, glaring poison at the Chrysler that someone has parked too close to him on his driver's side. He dials a new number and plugs his phone into the car console as he reverses out of the parking space too quickly.

Dean answers on the fourth ring that reverberates through the Honda's speakers, his voice strained but relaxed in a way that means he is probably under a car, holding his phone between his shoulder and ear. "Hey, babe, what's up?"

"Have Emma or Claire called you?"

The shift from relaxed to guarded is audible even before Dean speaks. "No. What happened?"

"I received a text from Claire asking me to call her." Castiel pulls onto the main road leading off campus. "I have now called her twice with no response."

"Okay," Dean says. "Okay. It's probably nothing." His tone is the soothing one he uses when Claire's upset over a poor grade, or Emma's gotten into another fight with one of her friends.

It makes Castiel testy: This is not an unsatisfactory grade or a human spat. "Claire would not contact me for nothing, Dean." Unspoken is _That is what she calls you for._ They both know that Dean is Claire's preferred parental figure, the one she asks to look over her English essays before she turns them in and to teach her to drive and to go with her into the hospital room when she had to have her appendix removed. Dean is the closest thing she has to the father she lost, while Castiel is the thing that took that father away. Claire associates him with pain and power, and that is why this is serious; that is why she would not have contacted Castiel before Dean unless something was very wrong. "I am driving to their school now, I suggest you do the same."

A scrape of metal as Dean rolled himself from under the car. "I'll be there in ten. Cas, wait for me to get there, okay, don't-"

Castiel disconnects the call and presses down the gas pedal.

- o -

He does not stop at the school's main office. Visitors to the campus are supposed to present their identification and receive visitor's badges there, but Castiel strides past it, coat flaring behind him, to the history class Claire has each day after lunch. He and Dean attend the girls' school orientations every year for precisely this reason, so that they may know precisely where each of them should be at any given time, despite Emma's loud protests that no one else in high school goes to orientation with their parents. They usually take this opportunity to surreptitiously draw wards into the doorjambs and window sills of the classrooms the girls will be occupying, as well, but perhaps they have not worked, perhaps something the sigils do not affect has found its way into the school, found its way to Claire.

Castiel tastes, for the first time, something like the panic that suffused Jimmy's vessel when he poured himself back into it in that abandoned factory, so long ago.

The door to Claire's classroom is closed. Castiel slams it open, his silver blade ready beneath his sleeve.

Twenty-nine pairs of eyes stare at him. Including two blue ones that belong to Claire, who is standing in front of the teacher's desk, an angry flush burning in her cheeks.

"Uh," says the teacher at his desk, half rising to his feet. His brows are furrowed. "Excuse me, what do you-"

"I am Claire's father," Castiel cuts him off stiffly. He sweeps the room with his eyes, looking for any sign of possession. "_Christo_." Not a single eye turns black that he can see, and nor is the teacher's, when Castiel turns his gaze to the man, whose expression has turned suspicious. "Claire will be coming with me."

"Excuse me?" the teacher says. He glances at Claire. "Sir, I'm sorry, but that's not how students are checked out-"

There's the sound of running footsteps in the hall outside, then Dean's skidding into the classroom. His hand is in his jacket, closed around the inner pocket Castiel knows contains one of his firearms, his eyes narrow with a guardedness Castiel hasn't seen in years. "Cas!" he barks, just before his eyes land on Cas, and then Claire. The guardedness doesn't drain from his eyes, but his body immediately relaxes, and his eyes release Castiel's to flick across the room, taking in the same things Castiel did.

"Mr. Winchester," the teacher says, and he sounds less recalcitrant now, though still confused. He knows Dean, has spoken with him about Emma. "What are you...?"

Dean is smiling suddenly, quicksilver charm, hand dropping out of his jacket to come up in an apologetic gesture. "I'm so sorry," he says. "It's just, we got a text from Claire that got us a little worried."

"You always come barging into her classroom when you're worried?" the teacher says with a cocked brow, and the students in the class snicker, reminding Castiel that they have an audience. He looks at Claire and sees she has rolled her eyes heavenward. Castiel's insides feel heavy. He has done something incorrectly, here. "I trust you know the students aren't supposed to have cell phones in class?"  
"Yeah, it's just-her grandma's in the hospital," Dean says without faltering, despite the fact that both Claire's maternal and paternal grandparents have been dead for years. "I told her to keep her phone on her so we could keep her updated."

The teacher's expression has become slightly apologetic. "Well. I wish you had told me that, Claire." He reaches into a drawer of his desk and pulls out what Castiel recognizes as Claire's phone, sliding it across the desk to her. Castiel sees the light blinking on its side that means she has missed calls. "I'm sorry, gentlemen, I confiscated her phone when I saw her texting with it."

"I understand," Dean says. He's moved closer to Claire somewhere in the curse of the conversation, and is now between her and the teacher. "We're going to go check her out of the office now, though." He goes to nudge Claire, but she's already moving to her desk to grab her backpack. "Sorry again for interrupting."

Castiel moves to the doorway, eyes the teacher balefully until both Claire and Dean have stepped out into the hallway, and closes the door after all three of them.

They get about three steps outside of the hallway, out in the cold Dakota air, before Dean says, carefully, "So...what just happened in there, Claire?"

"Castiel just made my history teacher think you're both psychotic, that's what happened," Claire says. "Really, Castiel?"

Castiel's insides twinge with hurt. He says stiffly, "You never contact me except in extreme circumstances, Claire. Surely you understand why I thought it was an emergency."

Claire doesn't say anything. Just looks at him. Then she shakes her head and sighs. Her bangs fly out of her face and then resettle behind her ears.

"Look," she says. "You have to pretend like you don't know." She looks at Dean. "Dean, can you-go home, maybe?"

Dean narrows his eyes but nods, clasping Claire's arm one more time before he leaves. "You sure you're okay?" he says gruffly.

She rolls her eyes. "I'm fine." And before he can ask, "Emma is, too, she's in gym right now, so unless you wanna get jumped by Coach Kerry I suggest you don't sneak over to check on her."

Dean grins, tugs Castiel's head toward his to plant a kiss on his hair, and leaves. But the look he shoots at Castiel before he turns says quite clearly _You better tell me what the hell she's up to when I see you after this_.

Claire waits until Dean is out of sight, turning the corner at the end of the breezeway, before she clears her throat. "Look," she says, looking at the courtyard behind them instead f at him, and it's eerily like the way Emma talks to Dean, much of the time. "Emma got her period today."

Castiel blinks. Absorbs the information. As far as he understands, human menstruation should begin at a much earlier age than what Emma is now, but in truth, he supposes, she is not truly the age she appears to be, and nor is she actually human, physiologically.

"She's freaked. 'Cause of, like, the obvious-" Claire gestures vaguely, "but also 'cause, like, she's afraid Dean is going to freak out."

"That is unjust," Castiel says. "The time you placed sanitary napkins on the shopping list, Dean obtained them for you without fuss."

Claire's eyes flash irritation. "Yeah, except she's not freaking about the whole _Dean won't wanna take me to buy tampons_ thing, Cas, it's more the _Dean's going to think I'm about to have Amazon babies and start eating human flesh_ thing."

Ah. That...makes sense. Unfortunately. Castiel knows that Dean would not truly believe Emma capable of such things, except that he would, for just a split, terrified second, and those split seconds somehow always manage to be just long enough for Dean to open his mouth and blurt out something he regrets later.

"I see," Castiel says, for he does. "What would you like me to do?"

For the first time, appreciation crosses Claire's features. "I was going to text you to bring us a pair of jeans for her." She grabs his hand, pulling him in the direction opposite to the one Dean took. "But now that you're here, we can just give her your trenchcoat to wear while you check us out and take us home."

This seems to be an acceptable plan. Castiel nods, letting himself be led down the breezeway. Just outside the next hallway extending off a breezeway are two doors with restroom signs on them, and a few steps away from them, Claire stops, looks up at him.

"Look, I know you're going to tell Dean. But can you just-tell him it was me? That I got my period early, or something." Her grip is very tight, her eyes very serious. "Please. Emma's freaking out."

Castiel inclines his head, slowly. "Claire," he says, and tastes the name in his mouth, rolls it over. "Of course."

- o -

Claire tugs him through the door that has the girls' sign affixed to it. The bathroom inside is unpleasant-of all the things Castiel has experienced as a human, school bathrooms are undoubtedly one of the most disagreeable-and the only closed stall is the handicapped one at the end.

"Em." Claire goes to the wide stall door, raps on it. "You can come out, I got help."

Emma's scuffed boots become visible under the door, which swings open. Emma stares straight at Castiel, the color draining from her face. Then she slams the stall door shut again. "Oh my God, you didn't get help!" she nearly wails. "You brought _Cas_! Why did you bring Cas?"

"So you can wear his coat, you idiot," Claire says, no trace of the sympathy she'd shown before, that had made her grip Castiel's wrist so hard. "Cas, can you-"

Castiel obediently shrugs off his trench coat and pushes it over the top of the stall door. Emma makes a hissing sound like it causes her pain but he feels it through the coat when she takes hold of it and pulls it the rest of the way over. For a moment, he considers asking if she is all right, but Claire gives him a swift look, and he refrains.

When Emma opens the stall door a moment later, some of her eye make-up has run, and her face is sticky-looking like she has been weeping. But she looks defiant, half glaring at Cas like she is daring him to say something. It's an expression he is familiar with from Dean, and he nearly sighs, nearly smiles. _Nearly_: Instead he does neither, but goes to the sink and wets a piece of rough brown paper towel to wipe the black streaks from her face.

She hiccoughs out a sob when he does that. "Being a girl _sucks_," she says around the tears.

"Now you can't make fun of me for needing pads anymore," Claire says unfeelingly. Emma aims a kick at her, but a laugh is making its way around her hiccups, stretched and strained like skin that has been pulled open and retracted.

"You're such a bitch," she says in that stretched voice, and Claire smirks, pinches her cheek.

"Aw, aren't you adorable," she says in a sing-song voice. "Maybe we should get you a bib, Baby's First Period."

Emma squawks and kicks at her again. Claire hops back, laughing, and slips out of the bathroom, leaving Castiel and Emma in front of the smudged mirrors.

"As I understand it, this event is cause for celebration," Castiel ventures after a moment. "I could make pancakes for dinner...?" Emma is extremely partial to pumpkin pancakes; Castiel endeavored to learn the recipe from Amelia after seeing how greatly she enjoyed them at the Thanksgiving brunch the Winchester-Novaks shared with the Thompson-Winchesters last year. "If you would like that."

Emma almost smiles. But her expression becomes dark instead, something bitter. "C'mon, Cas. We both know what this means."

Castiel compresses his lips. "It means that someday, should you so choose, you will be able to have a child with someone you love." He is not good at tactile gestures, even after all this time, but he puts his hand to Emma's head, lets it rest there, feeling the gentle pulse at her temple against his palm.

Emma makes a sniffing sound and swipes a hand across her nose. She mumbles, "Thanks, Cas," and ducks past him outside, trench coat flapping behind her.

- o -

Dean did not return to the garage, it appears, for the Impala is waiting in the driveway when they get home. Castiel goes to distract Dean so that Claire and Emma may go inside without Dean seeing Emma in Castiel's coat, but Dean isn't in the living room, nor the dining room, nor even the kitchen. Instead, Castiel finds him in the garage, pulling clothes out of the dryer and folding them as the radio in the corner plays a song Castiel vaguely recognizes from Dean's cassette collection.

Dean appears to be staring into space as he folds, eyes distant with thought, but he turns as Castiel steps into the garage from the kitchen. He clears his throat and goes back to folding a pair of slacks, says with a clear attempt at nonchalance, "They okay?"

Castiel takes one of Dean's t-shirts from the pile on top of the dryer, begins to fold it. "Raising children is..." He pauses, smoothes a wrinkle from the shirt. And finds that he is not sure what, exactly, raising children is.

Dean snorts. "Yeah." He stops folding and turns to look at Castiel, leaning his hip against the dryer. After a moment, he reaches for Cas; takes the folded t-shirt from him and puts it with the other folded clothes, reaches for Castiel's tie and loosens it with gentle hands.

"Claire give you hell for barging into her class?"

"Hell is one way to put it," Castiel says carefully. He leans into Dean's touch. "I have endured worse."

Dean snorts again. "Yeah." He pulls his hands from Castiel's tie, smoothes them down Cas's front instead, stopping when they are spanned across his ribs. "They're really okay?"

"Yes," Castiel says, and puts his hands over Dean's. He contemplates them for a moment. "I think that we should make breakfast for dinner tonight, however."

Dean raises a brow, tightens his hands under Castiel's and shifts him up onto the dryer. He steps between his legs, nuzzles his face into Castiel's neck. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Castiel says, his mouth careful around the words, and the quick breath that steals from his mouth, and Dean's warm face in his hands.

Dinner doesn't get started for another half hour.

- o -

Castiel knocks against Claire's door jamb, carefully. The door is open, but she is lying on her bed, copying something out of a textbook. She looks up, eyes narrowing slightly when she sees that it is him. "Come in."

Castiel takes a single step inside. "I wished to say," he begins, and has to hesitate, regather himself before continuing, "it was good of you to protect Emma today. She was scared, and you-"

"I don't need your approval," she interrupts. Her eyes are still narrow, but in a curious way, like she is trying to figure him out.

"No, of course not. But the courage to protect a sibling-" He thinks of Anna, and of Balthazar, and of Rachel. "It is admirable. _I_ admire it. Would emulate it." He is saying too much, and at the same time too little. He shakes his head at himself, steps backward, out of her room. "Good night, Claire."

Her eyes follow him. Curious but no longer narrow, just thoughtful. "Good night, Cas."

Emma comes up the stairs as he's shuffling down the dark hallway, wishing that had gone better. She starts when she sees him, then grins, mouth full of the leftover orange pancake she's got in one hand. "Actual cannibal Castiel," she intones in a sing-song, and from Claire's open door comes a howl of laughter. Castiel has no idea what it means, but Emma lets out a triumphant shout and bounds into Claire's room, jumping onto the bed.

"You watched the link? I _told_ you it was funny, oh my God, now are you going to trust me when I send you things?"

"No, because half the things you send me are porn-"

"Oh my God, be quiet, Cas is still out there!"

"I'm like ninety percent sure Cas knows about your porn habits, Emma."

"I do not, and nor do I have any wish to," Castiel calls as he heads down the stairs, away from the squeals and laughter that erupt behind him.

Dean looks up from the dishes he's washing in the sink as Cas comes up behind him. "All good?"

Cas takes the drying towel from where it's slung over Dean's shoulder and smiles. "All good."


	4. Chapter 4

**summary: **Claire and Emma try to obtain a birthday present for Cas. Things go pear-shaped-and for once, it's _not_ Emma's fault. Featuring cameos by Portia, James, and Benny.

**a/n:** this one is a two-parter. Thanks to everyone who has read thus far! I know it's presumptuous, but I really appreciate reviews...?

- o -

When it comes to the scale of their criminal behaviors, Emma is like Aladdin nicking people's watermelons and Claire is like that dude who stole the Declaration of Independence.

"Seriously?" Claire says when Emma shares this simile with her. "Of all the thieves in pop culture, you had to compare me to one played by Nicolas Cage?"

"I guess we could be Bonnie and Clyde," Emma says thoughtfully, and Claire mutters something about Catwoman, to which Emma coughs under her breath that Claire is more like Doc Ock, and Claire kicks her in the shin, goes back to looking out the cab window for the address on the paper she's clutching. It's started to drizzle, and the water streaks against the windows, making it hard to see the street signs in the darkness.

Their timetable is tight. The end-of-conference banquet Dad and Cas left for twenty minutes ago will only go until nine-thirty, at the latest, though they've probably got some leeway since Cas was one of the key presenters at the conference and people will doubtless want to talk to him. It would be nice if they could trust that Cas and Dad would just take the elevator up to their own hotel room and have sex like normal parents do when on a weekend trip, but the chances of that are like, nil, considering Dean's the most overprotective parent ever to have existed since, like, ever, and will insist on coming to make sure Claire and Emma are "doing okay" in their hotel room-i.e., still _in_ the hotel room, as opposed to out playing sexually-charged games of chicken in the hotel's indoor pool with those Argentinean tourists who were checking them out in the lobby this afternoon.

Which, okay, not that Emma would have been there anyway. Friday night is _Cult _night, and that's probably the only reasons Dad didn't insist on them coming to the dinner with him and Cas. Emma's obsession with _Cult_ is a well-known (if not entirely well-respected) quirk of their household, rather like Cas's penchant for music by Chicago or Claire's tendency to chew on orange peels when she's stressed. Everyone in the family, including J.B., understands that trying to get between Emma and a new episode of _Cult_ has about the same survival rate as the characters who show up in the first five minutes of a _Criminal Minds_ episode.

Apparently Claire thinks she's an exception to the rule, though, because the minute their door had slicked shut behind Dad and Cas, who had swung by for wardrobe approval before heading down to the banquet (and good thing they had, because Cas's tie had been backward, and Emma was pretty sure Dad had been going to let him go up on stage with it like that, if the way he'd been grinning was any indication), she'd said, "Come on" and smacked Emma's foot.

Emma had squawked and looked up from where she was sprawled on the bed to watch Billy and his family. She had a jumbo marshmallow from the bag she'd brought in her suitcase halfway to her mouth, but she'd pulled it down so she could make a face at Claire that said, _huh?_ and also, _shut up, Claire, it's about to start_.

Claire rolled her eyes and grabbed Emma's ankles, dragging her off the bed.

"What're you doing?" Emma screeched, clawing at the duvet to keep herself from being dragged off. "My show!"

Never let anyone tell you Claire doesn't play dirty, because she totally jabbed Emma in the armpit to make her let go of the duvet-which she did, with a shriek. "We've got stuff to do. C'mon, this'll be on Hulu by, like, three a.m."

"I don't wanna watch it at 3 a.m., I wanna watch it _now_-" Emma made a feint for the bed, hitting Claire in the face with her bag of marshmallows. Maybe if she hadn't eaten so many of them already it would have been a more effective weapon, but three-quarters empty it really wasn't, and also Claire played dirty again by targeting the belly button ring no one was supposed to know Emma had.

By the end of the scuffle, Emma had found herself shoved into her boots and coat and shivering on the curb outside the hotel as they waited for a taxi.

"What are we even _doing_?" she ground out, shoving her hands in her armpits.

Claire did one of those really cool sharp whistle things people always do in the New York movies to flag down cabs. It was kind of really cool, and Emma put a gloved hand over her mouth like she was coughing to cover her mouth as she tried to curl her tongue, too. Her attempt was cut off by a taxi pulling slushily in front of them.

"Cas's birthday is coming up," Claire had said as she motioned Emma into the cab. "We're getting his present."

- o -

The cab stops in front of some kind of coffee shop-slash-antique store. It's on the corner of a dark street that seems to consist mostly of restaurants-a seafood place, a Chinese one with a neon "Budweiser sign" glowing behind window bars, and an Italian place with paper lanterns strung across its awning-and empty office spaces, including one advertising a $75 divorce attorney.

"You always bring me to the nicest places," Emma says as Claire pays the driver.

"It was the only divorce lawyer I could afford," Claire says, dry, and Emma cracks up as they climb out of the car, her laughter making white clouds in the cold air.

Behind their creepy wrought iron bars, the windows of the coffee shop are papered over. Emma takes her fingers out of her coat pockets, tenses as Claire leads the way to the door. "You know what this place is?"

Claire quirks her a half smile over her shoulder. "Well, it's not an antique shop," is all she says. Which makes more sense than it doesn't, since despite being a millennia-old being, Castiel is actually more up on modern technology than Dad, who still insists on his record player and car from 1967 and phone that flips open instead of a touch-screen like normal human beings. He gets intrigued in Radio Shacks and Best Buys, while Dad's the one who insists they pull over when they see yard sales to see if they have anything cool. It's weird.

But anyway. What is this place, if it's not an antique store-cum-coffee shop?

Heh. Cum.

Claire pushes through the papered-over door. Emma hurries to follow her inside, grabbing the edge of the door as it tries to shut after Claire, heavier than she expected. It slams behind them with a jingle of bells.

Inside, the place does look like a coffee shop, though a dead one-there's only one customer, a man sitting at a rickety table near a door plastered with a BATHROOM sign. The cashier/barista/whatever is actually lying _on_ the countertop, kicking her feet in the air as she reads a yellow-paged paperback.

They both look up, eyes narrowed, and Emma's got to be imagining it that they relax slightly when they see her, right? Has to be imagining the way the man's nostrils twitch the slightest bit?

Claire strides past them both like they're not there and shoves open the door that says bathroom. Inside, there's a short hallway of grungy cracked tile like the bathroom in the cafeteria at school, and then a second door, which she also pushes through. Emma follows her, crowding a little closer on her heels than she'd feel comfortable admitting to afterward, and steps into a really, really big room-like, warehouse-sized, with the way-high ceiling and everything-full of people.

Emma's never been to a school dance before. She scoffs at them, had stayed home sulking in November when David Goldstein asked Claire to Homecoming, and joined Dad in his vocal complaints about the complete stupidity of something like school dances, and accepted the mug of mocha hot chocolate Cas made for each them (which she was pretty sure he had spiked in Dad's case, because Dad had just sort of gotten sloppy and affectionate after that, and Emma had gone up to her room to escape the goopiness because it was one thing to read fic about sexual tension and another thing to sit right next to it, ugh). But she imagines that this is what a school dance would be like, a bunch of glamorous-looking people gathered around talking to each other and ignoring you, except for the ones who stared at you with unimpressed faces that say _I cannot believe you had the nerve to show up here, what do you think you're doing, you little gnat._

Because these people? Standing together at what looks like a bar running around the left edge of the room, or gathered around what look like gaming tables to the right, or doing what looks like dancing toward the other end of the room? They exude the sense of being better than her, and knowing it. But there's more than that, there's something..._off_, here.

She catches a glimpse of too-sharp teeth, and catches a scent of something that has the hairs on the back of her neck prickling, and turns immediately to grab Claire's arm. But Claire's already set off across the room, striding long and easy like she owns the place. Like she's not the only human in a building full of people who are anything but-including Emma.

Biting down hard on her cheek, Emma lopes to catch up with her, not quite managing to resist the urge to press her shoulder against Claire's. She feels exposed; along with the hairs rising on her neck there are thoughts rising in her head: _what if Mom's here, what if someone recognizes what I am, what if they're looking because they _know_?_

"What the hell are we going here, Claire," she sing-songs nervously in Claire's ear, eyes on the people watching them.

Claire doesn't bother to glance up at her, just pats Emma's hand. "You really think I would let anything happen to you?" she says as she closes her hand around Emma's. Emma may or may not get a little squirmy warm feeling that is promptly ruined by Claire continuing, "Dean and Cas would kill me."

Emma huffs and pulls her hand back. "Since when are you the big sister? If anyone's keeping anyone out of trouble, it's me doing it for _you_."

Claire smiles, pats Emma's head, which makes her growl, and the sound is echoed by something near her feet. She looks down, sees a black and brown dog looking up at them with dark liquid eyes.

"Portia?" Claire says, raising a brow.

The dog yips, begins to trot away. Claire follows it, and Emma follows Claire, thinking that if Claire's planning to get Cas a dog for his birthday she should maybe think again because she's pretty sure Dad's kind of scared of them, though she's not sure why.

The dog leads them to a private little circle of sofas in the back of the room, before a small fireplace. There's a man sitting there, lithe and dark-haired. Emma thinks it's Cas for a split second before her nose tells her otherwise: This man smells of cologne and coconut and the musty-wet smell of the dog that hops up onto the couch beside him.

He turns his head as they approach. Emma edges slightly in front of Claire, ignores the look Claire shoots her. "Hi."

"Hi," he says back, brow creasing. His eyes are very dark, practically demon-dark, but there's no trace of sulfur in his scent. "You're here to buy?"

Emma's about to say _buy what_ when she blinks, and suddenly the dog next to the man is gone and it's a woman sitting next to him instead. A really hot woman, with the same liquid eyes as the dog.

"Claire," she says, and sticks out a hand, reaching past Emma. "A pleasure to finally meet in person."

Claire nods. "Portia. Do you have what I ordered?"

Portia's eyes are sliding past Claire to Emma. A little smile slips onto her lips as she looks at her, her nose twitching like she's trying to catch a scent. Emma shifts her feet, resists the urge to look away. In the back of her mind she's panicking, wondering if this shapeshifter is recognizing her, if somehow she knows Emma's mom and has recognized a resemblance. Emma can't really remember what Lydia looks like anymore, she was so young when she last saw her, and she's only seen the picture of Dean's mom once, when she sneaked in to look at it when Dad was away helping Garth on a hunt, so she's not sure what of her features is Winchester and what is...whatever Lydia's last name was. She could be her mom's spitting image and not know it, but those aren't really useful thoughts right now, Emma, get your head in the game.

"You do know there's this thing called women's suffrage, right?" she hears herself blurt out. "What's with the collar?"

The woman's curious look becomes patronizing; she rolls her eyes as she looks away from Emma back to Claire, and Emma kinda hates that, feeling dismissed, but it's a feeling she's gotten used to her whole life, pretending not to be something she is so she doesn't get noticed, and hurt.

"Charming paramour you have there," Portia says to Claire, who doesn't correct her, just says, "The powder?"

"_These_ are our customers?" says Portia's male companion suddenly. "Portia, they're children!"

Portia casts a glance at Emma, more cat-like than canine. "Are they?"

"I didn't come here to chat," Claire says. Her voice is pointed and expectant, the way Cas's gets when Dean hasn't done the dishes like he promised, and Emma smirks despite the situation.

"No, you came for a de-aging spell," Portia says. "Which we're going to give you, and normally I wouldn't ask any questions, but the two of you smell like a _very_ interesting human I used to know."

Claire's eyes narrow, while Emma rolls hers, because seriously, _another_ chick her dad had sex with? "Hate to break it to you, lady, but he's not on the market anymore."

"Apparently not," says Portia, looking at Emma again, and the tilt of her really nice lips is saying that she's definitely about to add something else, but Claire's striding forward impatiently.

"Enough of this," she's saying in exasperation, and reaching for the cloth pouch Emma's only just noticed, that is sitting on the cushion next to the man. "Just give us what we-"

The last thing Emma sees is a flash of really glittery light.

- o -

Dean hadn't been real happy when he found out that Cas had ordered them both the vegetarian meal for the banquet thing, but after seeing the weird and unrecognizable lumps of what was supposedly steak that had gone to the people at their table who had ordered the non-vegetarian meal, he'd been pretty mollified. And now, sucking the taste of the alfredo from Cas's tongue as they for the elevator to reach their floor, he might even be kinda happy about it, because _wow_, it tastes even better on Cas than it had on his fork.

"Wait," Cas manages to say, and peripherally Dean realizes that the elevator doors have opened behind them. He tries to ignore this and keep kissing Cas, but Cas keeps pushing on his chest and saying, "The girls," so Dean moans and lets his head fall into the crook of Cas's neck as Cas pushes him forward, out of the elevator into the hall.

"I was busy, Cas," he whines as Cas reaches into his blazer for the room key. His breath catches as Cas's hand brushes his nipple through the weirdly textured shirt he and Emma picked out at the mall last weekend for this fancy occasion. He groans, tightens his grip on Cas's hip. "Aren't you the one who's always telling me to stop breathing down their necks?" He perks up, sticks his nose behind Cas's ear. "Hey, speaking of breathing down necks-"

But Cas is stiffening. And a moment later, Dean is stiffening, too, because there's a set of wet marks visible in the dark blue hallway carpet in front of Claire and Emma's room, like the kind a set of slushy boots might have left behind, except the feet are way too big to belong to either of the girls.

They split immediately, Dean going to the far side of the door and Cas staying on the near side. Dean's hand creeps under his blazer to the gun he's never been able to break himself of carrying, and he nods at Cas. Cas _slams_ the door open with the bit of angel mojo he's never quite lost, and Dean darts in, gun trained and steady in front of him.

There's a bark, and Dean's heart freezes in his chest the way it always does, at that sound, and then it's flinging itself into his mouth because holy shit his gun is _pointed at two kids_.

He's swinging it to point at the carpet with wide eyes, breath knotting in his lungs, and only then, once the safety is clicked back on, does he register the man standing in front of the bed where the two girls and a dog-a fucking _dog_-are perched.

"The fuck?" tumbles out of his mouth. "_James_?"

"Dean," says James, and looks apologetic and damn right he better look apologetic because what the _fuck_ is going on?

The dog on the bed leaps off of it, and becomes Portia somewhere in the leap, and Dean's so mad he could spit with it, so mad he's trembling with it, as he surges past her to the two children on the bed because he fucking knows who they are, knows those wide blue eyes of the one and the spider-shaped burn on the wrist of the other.

Claire clings to him as he grabs her and Emma up, one arm going around them while the other shoves his gun back into the back of his jeans. Her little arms go around him, and his insides give a throb of recognition, of _Sammy,_ because even after nearly sixty years he can feel those octopus arms going around him like it was yesterday, and he holds her tighter, lets her burrow her face into his neck as Cas steps inside the room. The collar of his three-piece suit is lopsided and unbuttoned from where Dean was having his way with it before, his hair a mess from Dean's fingers as well, but there's nothing funny about the way he's looking at Portia and James, the threat burning coolly in his eyes as he flicks a glance to Dean where he's got an armful of four-year-olds-that-should-be-sixteen-year-olds.

He doesn't bat an eye, just looks back at Portia and James. "I don't believe we've met."

Portia flashes a smile, takes a step forward. Cas's nose twitches.

Portia stops. "Huh," she says, and her smirk hasn't faltered. Her eyes are knowing now, though, and Dean tightens his grip on the girls. "You don't like dogs, either, do you."

"You are more than a dog," is Cas's reply. "Dean?"

"They're fine," Dean says. "If you call being, like, four years old fine." He feels Emma stiffen but keeps his glare on Portia and James. "You guys have something to do with this?"

"Regrettably," James begins, his brow creased apologetically, but Portia's still smiling, putting a hand on her hip.

"Dean," she says, tilting her head toward Cas, "you haven't introduced us."

"Cas, meet Portia," Dean says. "She's a familiar. James is her witch. We go further back than I'd like." He looks at Portia. "Happy?"

"And who's this?" Portia says, tilting her head at Cas again.

"The motherfucker who's gonna fuck your shit up if you don't fix our kids," Dean snaps, and in retrospect, the "our" sort of gave Portia exactly what she wanted, 'cause now she's grinning like someone just gave her the belly-scratching of the year.

"_Oh_?" she says, and tilts her head back to look at James as though to say _I told you so_. "Seems like this should be the part where I say I hadn't pegged you as the type, Dean-except I did." She looks at Cas. "But I can't figure it out-what _are_ you?"

"Dean's husband," Cas says shortly. "What spell did you use on these girls?"

Portia blinks slowly, affecting an offended expression. "_We_ didn't do anything-"

"It was a de-aging spell," James interjects. "They came to buy it from us, God knows why-"

"Since when do you sell spells?" Dean says incredulously.

"Since it pays the bills," Portia retorts. She and Dean stare each other down for a moment until Castiel says, "James. How was it activated?"

"It's a sigil-activated powder." James rubs a hand through his hair. "Usually you draw the sigil in the powder and then ignite it-it has a saltpeter component-and whoever is inside the sigil is regressed to the age specified by the sigil. But your, um-" His eyes flick toward Dean, "daughter grabbed it and, boom. The spell went off."

"Jeez, Emma," Dean mutters, glancing down at her, because it sounds like exactly the sort of fucked-up mess his kid would get herself (and her sister) into. But then he immediately feels guilty, because Emma's tiny face sort of crumples, and she lets go of her handful of Claire's shirt. Shuffling backward on her knees, she crouches on the comforter with her arms curled over her head, and Dean's stomach _drops._

Portia's taking a half step forward, growling, before Cas is suddenly in front of her, and she lets out something like a snarl, glares at both of them. "Fuck you. She's not the one who set if off. It was the other one."

"Claire?" says Dean in disbelief as Cas scoops Emma up, ignoring the small sound she makes, and looks at James.

"What is the sigil for the spell?" he demands.

James names the symbol. Dean recognizes it as a modified Enochian character, it means-

_Oh_. He exchanges a look with Cas, gently uncurling one of Claire's arms from around him. He pushes back her sleeve, revealing the silver bracelet she and Emma both wear, as near of replicas as he had been able to remember of the one he had seen his own mother wearing when he met her in the past.

He taps one of the charms on it, holding it up for James to see. "This one?"

James squints. Sighs. "Yes."

"Should maybe be a little more careful with your spellwork, buddy," Dean says, letting go of Claire's arm and giving her a gentle _thank you_ smile. She eyes him for a moment, then breaks into a smile back, and turns around in his arms to regard the tableau unfolding in front of them. "What do we have to do to reverse it?"

- o -

Apparently James doesn't have a way to reverse it. Of course not. That would've been too easy.

"I can try to find a way to shorten it," James says, still wearing his creased _shit I am so sorry, you guys_ expression. "It's an old spell, I should've researched it better-"

"It's not like we thought the people who were trying to buy it were legit," Portia says. "I figured it was some middle-aged housewife looking to relive her cheerleader years."

"That makes a difference to the level of safety you aspire to in your spellwork?" Cas says mildly. His hand is cupped protectively around the back of Emma's head.

"Like you're such an angel," Portia tosses back. "That kid's scared out of her mind, in case you haven't noticed. What did you two do to her that she doesn't even want to look at you?"

Dean sees red. "Shut the fuck up-"

"Dean," says Cas, and lowers Emma carefully to the ground. She promptly crawls under the bed, silent like some sort of animal, and Dean's heart fucking _breaks_.

"I will speak to our guests outside," Cas says, and his eyes are soft but hard, too. When he turns them on Portia and James, they both follow him out the door, James shooting an apologetic glance over his shoulder at Dean as he goes and Portia shooting a raw one at the underside of the bed. Dean doesn't see either of them, transferring Claire to his hip and crouching down on one knee to peer at the shape under the bed, ignoring the way his bones creak.

"Emma?" he says, as soft as he can.

The shape doesn't move. He hears her breathing; it's very soft, fast but controlled, reminds him of being on hunts with his dad when he was a kid, flattened against a tree or behind a headstone, struggling not to be heard by monsters creeping through the undergrowth or policemen shining their flashlights across the graveyard.

Claire slides off his hip. She goes onto her knees, sticking her head right up against the bed frame.

"Em_ma_," she says, and it's the first time Dean's heard either of them talk, in this form, and in any other situation he might have laughed because Claire sounds so _bossy_.

She crawls under the bed without say anything else, a tiny Conversed foot-because apparently whatever that spell was, it shrunk their clothes with them-kicking him in the knee as she scoots herself forward. He hears a giggle, then an angry sound, then a scuffle, and a thump, like someone's hit their head, and a wail. It breaks off pretty quickly, and Claire's high-pitched voice goes, "There, there, it's okay, see? See, Emma?"

And sniffling noises, and Dean's sort of blinking, hand braced against the bed frame, and that's how Cas finds them when he comes back in, shutting the door carefully behind him.

Dean shoves to his feet, doesn't quite manage it because apparently his leg muscles cramp a lot faster than they used to, and settles for thumping back onto his butt instead, on the carpet next to the bed. At Cas's arched eyebrow, he says, "They're both under here now," and points with his chin at the bed. Cas nods in comprehension and comes to sit beside him, sighing.

Dean keeps his voice low, which is pretty dumb, considering they're like twelve inches away from the girls. "What's the verdict?"

"You aren't going to like it."

"Kind of used to worst case scenarios, by now," Dean says, staring at the dark space under the bed and remembering the burn on Emma's wrist. It had been a bright, angry red, like it had just been seared there, instead of the faded white mark it had been for as long as he'd known her. "Hit me."

"There was moonstone in the powder," Cas says. "It is intended to operate on lunar cycles, which means it will most likely last until the new moon two weeks from now."

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose. "And James doesn't have a way to shorten it?"

"He is going to look," says Cas darkly, and the _he knows what will happen to him if he doesn't_ is strongly implied by the octave Cas's voice reaches.

Dean rubs his nose a little bit more and leans into Cas's shoulder, squeezing his eyes shut.

They are _so_ fucked.


	5. Chapter 5

summary:In which Dean and Cas deal with the fall-out from Claire and Emma's de-aging spell.

a/n: I was wrong, this is a three-parter. The next chapter will be the last in this little segment, then there is a how-Claire-came-to-join-the-family oneshot ready to be posted.

Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed!

- o -

Cas spends most of that night on the laptop Claire had insisted on bringing along, alternating between looking up arcane aging spells and child-raising manuals. Because apparently they post that sort of thing online these days. As PDF files, whatever the hell those are.

One of those manuals is where Cas gets the idea that the girls will absolutely need car seats to ride in the Impala. Dean doesn't remember Sam ever riding in a car seat when he was four, but he's also sort of painfully aware that Sam didn't always get what he should've gotten when he was a kid. So the next morning he coaxes the girls out from under the bed where they had fallen asleep the night before and manages to swipe a wet washcloth down both their faces and behind their ears and under their chins while Cas goes to the continental breakfast downstairs to bring coffee and to-go cups of Fruit Loops up for them.

Emma stays close to Claire still, her hair sticking up messily from the French braid she'd had it done in when she was still Dean's Emma instead of this one. She keeps her chin stubbornly against her chest as he wipes dried tear tracks from her face. He's about to push the issue, since she's kind of grimy all over from being under the bed, but the way her pulse is flying under the hand he's got loosely around her little wrist reminds him that this is probably pure instinct-of course an Amazon's not going to bare her throat to a predator.

So he lets go. She takes off, jackrabbiting for the unmade bed where Claire's found the remote and changed the TV from the news to some cable cartoon channel. She crouches there, watching him.

Dean sighs and looks away, goes to wash his own face. While he's swiping a towel down his face to dry it, Cas gets back, juggling a stack of individual cereal cups and steaming Styrofoam cups of coffee. He hesitates a little in the doorway. Dean sees him bite his lip, studying Claire.

Claire's turning to look at him, too. This is when Dean _really_ wants to know how much the spell has taken of their memories and how much it's left behind, because she's staying still instead of going toward him.

"Daddy...?" she says uncertainly.

The door clicks shut behind Cas, forcing him forward a step. "Ah," he says, just that one uncertain sound. Then, visibly rallying himself: "Are you hungry?"

His voice is gentle. But even as its gentlest, Cas's gravelly voice isn't Jimmy's, and Claire's mouth is trembling.

"You're not my daddy," she whispers.

It's like something under Cas's face crumples. Dean sees it. But Cas keeps his expression carefully gentle. "No. I'm sorry, Claire."

Claire turns her back to him. She stares down at the ugly bedspread, blinking. Emma sidles toward her, careful, crowds up against her until their shoulders are pressed together.

Claire hiccups. After a minute she says, "Castiel."

So they must remember, at least a little bit. Or maybe it's because Claire was Cas's vessel? Maybe being possessed means she recognizes him even if she doesn't remember him.

"He said you have to take care of me." There's a defiance to Claire's tone, almost like a spoiled kid bossing around the the hired help, except for the quaver on her last word. "You _promised_ him."

Cas carefully places the breakfast items on the table. He comes to the foot of the bed and crouches there, looking up at Claire. Then he lowers his head, and puts one knee to the floor.

It looks like a knight swearing fealty to a princess.

Cas doesn't say anything. Just stays there, with his head bowed, until Claire puts a small hand on his mussed hair.

"Okay," she says.

- o -

His kids are friggin' _tiny_. Between grabbing Emma's little hand to cross the parking lot and feeling how his own more than swallowed it up, and sliding his hands under Claire's arms to lift her into the Impala and feeling each individual, fragile rib beneath his palms, Dean's suddenly, fervently in agreement with Cas's insistence on car seats. Hell, he's not even sure car seats'll be enough; he'd be more comfortable rolling them them up in bubble wrap, too. He climbs into the backseat with them, sitting in the middle where he can throw his arms out to catch both of them if anything happens, while Cas drives them all to the Sears he looked up on Google Maps.

Once they're there, Dean sends Cas with the girls to start looking at clothes-they're gonna need more than what they're wearing to get through two weeks-while he goes to get the car seats.

When he wheels the blue Sears cart back into the girls' clothing section ten minutes later, though, it's empty. Instead, there's sounds coming from the toy aisle across the way, where he finds Claire playing with a remote controlled Barbie convertible, making it ram over and over again into Emma's boots. Emma looks fascinated, moving her feet to let the car zoom between them, then grinning when it backs up over her toes. Cas crouches beside her, observing it intently, his trench coat pooling on the linoleum.

Dean rolls his eyes, mostly to hide the fact that this is kind of one of the most adorable things he'd ever seen. Then he clears his throat, and waits until three heads have swiveled around to raise his eyebrow expectantly.

"My apologies, Dean," Cas says. "We were distracted from our mission."

Dean hides a smile, and Cas and the girls fall into step behind him as they head toward the girls' clothing. His smiles evaporates kinda quickly, though, as they pull up in front of all the One Direction and Disney Channel stuff. He swears he can feel his balls shrinking and trying to escape back into his body.

Maybe this'll go faster if they split up.

- o -

Or not. Forty minutes later, Dean's sitting outside the dressing rooms, waiting for Claire to finish trying on her twenty bazzilionth outfit.

He taps his cell phone against his thigh. "You almost done in there, Claire-bear?"

"Almost!" she calls. Which really means she is going to be at least another fifteen minutes. Dean has learned this from experience.

He sighs. If only Sammy could see him now. Dean had texted him the bare bones of their situation earlier that morning, and received only an all caps _LMFAO_ in return, then a _only u, dean_, to which he had responded **fuck u sam**, which had gotten him a text from Amelia's phone saying_**stop cursing at my husband, dean**_ and then an _**OH MY GOD SEND US PICTURES**__._

Claire had been all too eager to pose for a picture, in what Dean hadn't realized then would be outfit #3 of 17,000, but he hadn't gotten one of Emma, as she and Cas haven't come to the dressing rooms once in all the (prolonged) time Dean and Claire had been there. Dean realized that he wasn't sure if Cas was actually familiar with the concept of dressing rooms and tried to text him, with no response. Which, okay, has him kinda worried. What if Emma gave Cas the slip and took off? Or what if they've both been, you know, accosted by a security guard for driving a remote-controlled Barbie convertible into a fountain or something?

The sound of Claire fumbling with the dressing room lock interrupts his worrying. She emerges a moment later, carrying more clothes than a camel could probably carry through the desert. She dumps them in the cart, returns one-one!-shirt to the Return to Racks pole, and grins at Dean.

"I'm ready to go."

"Are you sure?" Dean says dryly. And, when Claire casts a speculative glance at the row of formal kids' wear behind them, says quickly, "Just kidding! Let's go find the aliens, huh?"

Claire hops onto the back of the cart, riding it as he starts to push. A passing store employee casts a reproachful look at her and a _do something about your child, please_ at Dean that Dean blithely ignores, instead starting to weave the cart drunkenly so that Claire shrieks with laughter, hanging on tight.

They make a full circuit of the children's clothing and shoe section that way, with no sign of Emma or Cas. By then, they're neither weaving nor laughing anymore. "Where'd they go?" Claire asks quietly, wide-eyed. She's slipped off the back of the cart to creep under Dean's elbows, sandwiching herself between him and the cart handle.

"Maybe they went back to look at the Barbie car," Dean says, airier than he feels. He pushes the cart that way, but he's lifting his phone to his ear at the same time, each whir of the carts' wheels rotating followed by another ring from the earpiece as Cas doesn't pick up. They're rounding into the toy section now, and the action figure aisle is empty, the Barbie aisle is empty, the-

There they are.

In the farthest corner of the toy section, where there's two disorganized shelves of board books, Cas is sitting on the floor with his coat pooled around him, his back to them. There's a short stack of books beside him. Emma's crouched a foot away from him, her chin on her knees.

"_I, Grover, am nailing this page to the next one so that you will not be able to turn it_." Cas's low voice carries to them as he reads. Neither he nor Emma appear to have noticed their presence. Dean would rather keep it that way, wouldn't cut short the scene in front of him for anything even if that is jealousy tugging low in his gut. He motions to Claire to move quietly as he pulls the cart backward carefully.

They head back to the clothing section. There had been no clothes next to Emma or Cas, just a pink shoebox. Dean wonders what kind of shoes she had picked out as he stops in front of the display of Disney apparel from which most of Claire's selections had come. He's not sure what clothes to pick out for Emma-her tastes as a teenager range more toward Hot Topic, to his everlasting dismay, and he can picture her dying of embarrassment if he manages to get a picture of this younger version of her wearing a Hannah Montana shirt. He snickers at the idea, then remembers the way she'd trembled when he'd touched her that morning, and sighs.

Claire tugs on his sleeve. "Are we picking out Emma's clothes for her?"

"Got it in one, kiddo." Dean pastes on a smile. "What kind of shirts you think she'd like?"

Claire thinks for a minute. "Plain?"

Dean makes a face. Because God, the kid only gets to be a, well, kid, once, and Dean kind of wants to spoil her. Not dress her in solid color t-shirts and jeans like he and Sam grew up in because they were what was cheapest.

"Not plain," Claire guesses now, watching his face.

Dean picks her up and deposits her in the front of the cart. "Let's see what we find."

- o -

Cas and Emma wander back when Dean and Claire are almost done with their gathering. Dean holds up the clothing for Emma to see as she holds her shoebox gingerly away from her, like it's something that might explode in her hands. There's a black shirt with rainbow hearts all over it that resembles a pair of shoelaces Emma had, another one with the Queen of Hearts on the front, some plain t-shirts, a black and plaid skirt that matches a jacket teenage!Emma has. Emma just looks at them, and Dean's not sure she understands.

"For you, kiddo," he says. "Do you want 'em?"

Emma looks at Cas, at Claire. Back at Dean, and she shakes her head, holds out the shoebox carefully.

"She wants the shoes," Claire announces, needlessly. She is trying to climb out of the cart to get to Emma, and Dean has to catch her and disentangle her foot from the leg hole.

"Okaaaay," he says as he lowers Claire to the ground. "But you need clothes too, Em. Do you like these ones?"

Emma just holds the shoebox tighter.

Dean is careful not to sigh. Yeah, maybe he'd been hoping that picking out shirts his Emma would have liked would have been enough to make this Emma look at him like she looks at Cas, like she might be on the verge of trusting him, but he'd known even as he picked them out how unlikely that was.

"All right," he says. "Let's go this way, okay?" He steers them to the underwear section, wincing at all the pink and purple. It's when he's standing there watching Claire explain Dora the Explorer characters to Emma that Cas appears, holding a shirt.

It's pink and kind of frilly, lace edging the hem and sleeves, but Emma's eyes catch on it immediately, follow it as Castiel adds it to the cart. She doesn't move to touch it, looks away when she sees Dean notice her looking at it. Dean shoves the cart at Cas, says, "Wait here," and goes back to the clothes section, finds three other shirts like the ones Cas got, in different colors, and brings them back to the cart to place them carefully on top of the booster seat boxes.

Cas catches his hand and squeezes, once.

- o -

The drive from Chicago to Sioux Falls is about nine hours, give or take. By the time they get out of the mall, it's nearly two in the afternoon, because holy _crap_ does shopping for girls take forever. Wrestling the car seats out of their boxes and into the Impala's backseat takes another half hour, and by then both of the girls have these half glazed, half murderous looks on their faces.

"Uh oh," Dean says under his breath as he and Cas strap them into the seats, finally. "Watch out, Cas, these kids are like two seconds away from eating us."

Cas tilts his head. "Claire has no taste for human flesh."

Dean almost groans. "No, I just-I mean, they're hungry." He gets into the driver's seat and adjusts the rearview so he can see the two munchkins in the backseat as Cas climbs in. "Burgers sound good, you guys?"

"Chicken nuggets," Claire says sulkily, sounding half asleep.

"Burger King it is, then," because as long as they're doing cheap burgers, Cas prefers BK to McDonald's.

When they pull into the parking lot, he and Cas do rock-paper-scissors to decide who gets to order and who gets to take the girls to the bathroom. "Ha!" Dean crows when he wins. "You gotta stop going with rock, dude, it sinks you every time. Heh. Sinks, get it?"

"Yes, Dean, very amusing." Cas rolls his eyes as he leads the girls to the back, which means Dean's definitely going to steal the pickles from his burgers, because seriously, Cas, you should learn to appreciate a good pun now and then.

Dean orders to-go so that they can get back on the road while they eat. The time away from Cas as he waits to order is enough time for his brain to start working feverishly again, reminding him of all the ways in which he is going to fuck up Emma and Claire as kids, as if all the things he's done haven't messed up their lives enough already, and by the time they're all back in the car, Cas trying to wrestle a straw into the juice boxes that came with the girls' meals, Dean can't help it, he waits until he's reversed out of the parking spot and then he mutters, "So I was thinking. We should probably call Jody and ask her to tag in for us until full moon."

Cas pauses with the straws. Gives Dean a _I am going to pretend you didn't just say what you just said_ look. And goes back to grappling with the straws.

This is why Dean fucking loves Cas, man. Cheered, he says, "Oh my God, dude, just let me do it," and grabs the straws from Cas.

They end up switching places so Dean can take care of food distribution. Once he's buckled into the driver's seat, Cas reaches for the glove compartment.

Dean draws his knee up, jamming it. "Uh-uh. What're you doing?"

"I'm getting the GPS."

"Cas. You don't need the GPS."

"I'm not familiar with these roads, Dean."

"That's why you've got me!"

"The GPS doesn't criticize the tightness of my left turns or yell at me to pass cars that are going the speed limit," Cas says waspishly, and shoves Dean's knee out of the way with one hand, getting out the GPS with the other. Dean huffs and traps the hand beneath his knee in retaliation, which doesn't seem to bother Cas at all; he hooks up the GPS and pulls out of the parking lot all one-handed, and Dean's sidling down in the seat to cover Cas's hand with his thigh instead because his knee is cramping. Cas is smiling, though, so it's worth the cramp.

"We have an audience, you know," Cas says as he pulls onto the interstate.

Dean sighs, releases Cas's hand only to take it in his own absently, massaging the pins and needles out of it as he twists around to look at the girls in the back. Emma is staring back, sucking on a ketchup packet, and Claire has a French fry up each nostril. Seriously, he would not have pegged her as the type.

"Ketchup tastes better on fries than boogers do, Claire," he says, and Claire grins, blows them out of her nose-right onto the Impala's floor. Dean groans-then abruptly cuts off, because that sound he just heard? Was Emma laughing. Holy crap. He stares at her. She still has her mouth open in a big grin as Claire goes "ha!" and sticks two more fries in her nose.

The grin becomes a thunderous frown as Claire reaches across the seat between them to try and stick fries in her nose, too. She makes an angry noise, kicking her legs. Her shoes brush the back of Cas's seat.

"Claire," says Cas, sternly, and Claire makes a face.

"I was just trying to make her laugh," she says petulantly, but withdraws to her side of the backseat.

It's only when his phone starts vibrating in his pocket that Dean realizes he's still twisted around staring at the girls and, on top of that, is still holding Cas's hand. He drops it, ignoring Cas's amused glance, and flips open his phone. "Yeah, Sammy?"

"Where are you guys?"

"In the car. About...seven hours out from Sioux Falls?"

Sam snorts. "Are you serious?"

"Uh. Yeah?"

Sam makes an _oh my God Dean you are so dense_ sound that probably has his ridiculous hair blowing out of his eyes. "You haven't really thought this through, have you?"

"Thought through what? My kids being turned into Strawberry Shortcake and Blueberry Muffin?"

"No, Emma is Apple Dumplin," Claire declares, making sure she's loud enough for Sam to hear her through the phone. "HI UNCLE SAM!"

"HI, CLAIRE!" Sam shouts back, which he totally does on purpose to fuck with Dean's eardrums, Dean knows it. He has such an ingrate for a brother.

"All right, all right, watch the volume." He rubs his ears. "What're you being all gloat-y about, Sam?"

"What do you thinks going to happen if you waltz back into the town where everyone knows you guys with two miniature versions of Emma and Claire?"

"We'll just tell them they're our nieces come to visit, or something." Dean shrugs, reaching for Cas's burger in the to-go bag to hand it to him. Cas just opens his mouth, instead, and Dean makes a frustrated sound, to which Cas cuts him a glance and a raised eyebrow that says _I'm driving, Dean_, to which Dean mutters, "Dude, you don't see me making you feed me when _I_'m driving," to which Cas says, "You are a far more experienced driver than I am, Dean, as you are well aware" and yeah, Dean knows he's being buttered up, but he unwraps the burger wrapper and holds the burger for Cas to take a bite, anyway. Then he retaliates by taking a bite of it himself and saying, with a food-filled grin, "Service charge," and, oh yeah, Sam's still on the phone.

"Oh my God, Dean, are you even listening to me? Hello? CLAIRE MAKE DEAN STOP FLIRTING WHEN I'M TRYING TO TALK TO HIM."

"Jesus, Sam!" Dean yanks the phone away from his ear, just in time for Claire to shout from right behind him, "STOP FLIRTING DEAN!" He hooks his arm around the seat to tickle her pudgy knee in retaliation. "I'm _listening_, okay?"

"_Now_ you are," says Sam in a satisfied voice. "And as I was saying, you don't think anyone's going to notice your two nieces look exactly like your two daughters who are conveniently nowhere to be found?"

"Well." Dean clears his throat. "We'll just stick inside till the spell's done its thing. No one has to see 'em."

"You _could_ do that." Sam pauses. "Or you could use the spell the way Emma and Claire wanted you to, as a gift."

Dean blinked. "A gift? Sam, I'm pretty sure their plan wasn't to de-age themselves as a _gift_."

"They were clearly trying to de-age somebody," Sam says. "And Cas's birthday is coming up, so I'm just saying, do the math, Dean. Maybe they were planning to de-age Cas."

"_Cas_?" Dean glances over at his husband, who has started snagging handfuls of fries from the bag in Dean's lap and only raises an eyebrow when Dean looks at him. It's supremely difficult to imagine him as a four-year-old-impossible, really. Would he still talk with the sex voice? "Stop mentally scarring me, Sam."

Sam huffs. "_Dean_. I'm just saying, regardless of who they were planning to use to spell on, the fact remains that you have two weeks to kill and neither Cas nor Emma have exactly ever gotten a chance to be kids, you know? They haven't gotten to do the whole...family road trip, Grand Canyon, Disney World thing." His voice softens, the way it always used to when they were talking to the families of people who had passed away. "And neither have you."

Dean glowers at the dashboard. "Yeah, well." Cas is keeping very still in the driver's seat in that way Dean knows means he's listening but doesn't want to influence Dean's decision. "We'll think about it. Talk to you later, Sam."

He closes the phone. Looks at Cas. Then back out the window.

"He has a point," Cas says after a few minutes of quiet. "The girls would have more fun if they were not cooped up in the house for two weeks."

Dean knows it's true. So he leans forward and reprograms the destination on the GPS, and Cas pulls off at the next exit.

- o -

"Cas?" he says as they're lying in bed that night after Claire and Emma have fallen asleep. Dean knows they're asleep because the first time he tried to change the TV from Disney Channel, Claire had reared up from the other bed, mumbling something fierce-sounding until he'd hastily changed it back to _Shake It Up_. A few minutes ago, he'd managed to safely change it to the news without any protest from the next bed, so he'd figured they were both out. "What do you think they wanted the spell for in the first place?"

Cas turns his head on the pillow he's got his face buried in. "Honestly, Dean, I am as mystified as you," he mumbles. "Puzzling as humans in general are, I have found that adolescent human females are exponentially more so."

"I dunno, man, teenage boys are pretty bad, too," Dean says, turning off the television and scooting down under the covers. He twists so that he's facing Cas. "When Sam was sixteen-" He yawns, shaking his head. "Shit. You don't even wanna know."

Cas makes a non-committal noise, shifting onto his side and wriggling one hand under Dean's neck. His fingers are cold, as usual.

"Imagine if they'd been gender-bent instead of de-aged," Dean mumbles.

Cas's hand stops in its quest to get to the nape of Dean's neck. He cracks his eyelids open, two dark liquid gleams in the lights seeping through the curtains from the parking lot. "Dean. I am not sure if I want to know the answer to this question, but have you been reading Emma and Claire's online contributions again."

Dean flushes. "I was making sure they weren't reading anything bad! And they _were_," he throws over his shoulder out of habit, only to be reminded by Cas's pillow-muffled snort of laughter that the miscreants in question were actually four years old right now, and fast asleep besides. He scoots closer to Cas in the darkness, finding Cas's ear with his nose. "I'm telling you, Cas, there's these things called kink memes-"

"Dean." Cas's hand finds the back of Dean's head and pulls it to him. "Go to sleep."

- o -

The next morning starts with a freak-out. Because when Dean wakes up and slides out from under Cas's arm and the covers to pad over to the dinky coffee maker on the dresser and glances over at the girls' bed, Claire's the only one in it.

He rushes to the bathroom. It's empty, and so is the tiny closet when he yanks its door open, and he's freaking out, he's freaking the fuck out, how could he let this happen, where are his pants, where are his keys-

"Dean." Cas is sitting up, rubbing his eyes. "What are you doing?"

"Emma's gone!"

Cas's eyes sharpen. He's out of bed in a second, hands smoothing over the blankets on the girls' bed like he's going to find Emma under the flattened blankets. Claire rolls in her sleep, away from him, taking a bunch of the coverlet with her. It pulls the edge up from the side of the bed, and Dean sees the dark space underneath, remembers how Emma had gone straight for it in the hotel room in Chicago. Cas must remember, too-they drop to their knees and peer under it so hastily their heads knock.

Dean hardly notices the pain, doesn't feel anything past his relief, because there's Emma, crammed into the far corner against the wall, fist in her mouth as she twitches in her sleep.

- o -

They drive straight through breakfast, and lunch, stopping only for drive-through and rest stops. Emma doesn't eat at either meal, turning her face away even when Cas tries to coax her into eating. She hardly takes her fist out of her mouth the whole time, gnawing on her fingers, and it makes Dean tense, worried.

Meanwhile Claire is bored: "Are we there yet?"

"Where are we going?"

"I'm _bored_!"

By the time they stop at a rest area that afternoon, she's turned sullen, refusing to talk to either of them. The minute Cas has her unstrapped she's climbing out of the car, stomping imperiously across the parking lot. Emma breaks into a run to catch up with her, and Dean's heart stutters as a Buick backing out of its space nearly hits them.

"Claire!" he shouts, angry with fear. Claire flinches like she knows she should've known better because fuck, they _do_, his kids know better than to run off across a parking lot without looking. She grabs Emma's hand and drags them both past the vending machines into the women's bathroom. Dean stops short, letting out a growl, and has to settle for leaning against the wall beside the doorway instead, for waiting for them to come out.

Cas's hand cups the back of Dean's neck as he tilts his head back, thunking it against the rough brick. He doesn't say anything, just massages gently, coaxing Dean's heart rate back down. Dean lets out a slow breath, softening under Cas's touch.

Then suddenly there's fingers slipping into his back pocket and Dean's pulse is leaping back up all over again because "holy shit, Cas, what're you doing?"

Cas's eyes gleam at Dean's hiss. He dips his fingers deeper into Dean's pocket, massaging Dean's muscles through the denim, then slowly slides his fingers back out. Something heavy comes with them-Dean's wallet. Dean huffs out a laugh as he sees it in Cas's hands, sees the curve of Cas's chapped lips as he says innocently, "I was just getting ones for the vending machines, Dean."

Dean's of half a mind to grab Cas by the belt loops and spin him so _he_'s the one getting felt up against the wall. But what looks like a whole tour bus of old people is coming down the walkway from the parking lot toward them, so he settles for leering at Cas instead. Cas smiles and saunters toward the vending machines, holding Dean's wallet over his shoulder like a taunt.

As Cas disappears around the corner, Dean takes a breath again and leans back against the wall, watching the stream of elderly ladies filtering into the bathroom. He hopes they don't scare Emma. He doesn't really see why they would; her suspicion, thus far, seems mainly to extend to dudes, which isn't a surprise considering the whole Amazon thing. Still, that's a _lot_ of old ladies, and he'll feel better when her and Claire are back out here, surely they must be done by now...?

Or not. Because ten minutes later, all the old ladies have come out and returned back to their bus, and Cas has come back with an armful of water bottles and packaged snacks, but Dean's kids still haven't come out of the bathroom.

Cas hands him a Mountain Dew, forehead creased. "They have not emerged yet?" He leans around to peer into the bathroom just as a middle-aged woman wearing a fanny pack and a visor comes out. She gives him a narrow _what do you think you're doing you pervert_ look.

Dean sighs and pulls him back with one hand, smiles as not-creepily as he can. "Excuse me. Ma'am? My daughters went in there a few minutes ago and they haven't come out-I'm just getting a little worried."

The woman eyes him, clearly trying to figure out if he's legit. "Where's their mother?"

"Deceased," Cas says bluntly. He seems a little incensed with the woman, is staring at her in his stony _I am not impressed with you_ face.

She backpedals, a little. "Oh," she says. "Oh. I could-I'm sorry. I could go tell them you're waiting for them?

"Please," Dean says with another polite smile.

She disappears back inside. Dean gives Cas a Look. Before he can say anything like _dude, cool it with the creeper face,_ the woman is coming back out, and now she looks a little amused.

"The older one would like me to tell you that they aren't coming out until you promise no more driving for the rest of the day," she informs him. "She's bored and they are going to miss the new episode of their show if you don't check into a hotel by four o'clock."

Dean lets out a surprised breath. Then he laughs, shaking his head, because way to drive a bargain, kiddo.

"There isn't anyone else in there at the moment," the woman informs him. "If you'd like to go inside and get them."

"Sounds like my only option," Dean says, giving her a _what can you do?_ shrug. "Thanks so much. C'mon, Cas."

"Perhaps I should wait outside," Cas says.

"Dude, no. If I have to go into a chick bathroom to drag out our kids, _you_ have to go into a chick bathroom to drag out our kids." He hauls him in by the arm.

Claire squawks when she sees them. She's sitting on one of the sinks, swinging her feet, as Emma stands under one of the hand dryers with her mouth open. It's hard to tell, what with the air blowing her cheeks out, but it looks like she's smiling. "You can't be in here! This is the girl bathroom!"

"And this is a _family_ vacation, so it's time to come back to the family," Dean says, picking her up and slinging her over his shoulder. "Cas, you got the Emster?"

Emma is looking mournfully over Cas's shoulder at the air dryer as he lifts her. "I have her," he confirms needlessly.

Claire kicks her feet dangerously close to some of Dean's important bits. "I don't _want_ to get back in the car! I wanna go _home_!"

Dean glances over at Cas, the movement exaggerated. He sighs heavily. "Should we tell them, Cas?"

Claire stills suspiciously. "Tell us what?"

"I am not sure, Dean," Cas replies, equally grave. "We promised you know who it would be a surprise."

Claire stretches to look at Emma. Emma looks back, mouth working against her fist again. Some saliva droops onto Cas's jacket.

"We wanna know," Claire decides.

"All right, then," Dean says, and swings her off his back to strap her into the car seat; they've reached the Impala. "We're heading to see Benny."

"Benny!" Claire shrieks, and wow, maybe Dean should have thought that out better, like told her when his ear wasn't right next to her mouth. Still, he can't bring himself to mind that much, not with the way Claire looks excited now, sitting up in her car seat, instead of angry. "How long, how long!"

"Not much longer?" Cas says. "Perhaps two hours." He looks down at Emma, who doesn't seem very affected by the news, just watches them as Cas straps her in. "Perhaps you two should nap until then, so you are energized when you see Benny."

Claire does just that, dropping off soon after they get back onto the highway, making Dean think that a lot of her crankiness was just from being tired. But every time Dean glances in the rearview, Emma's still awake, staring out the window.

She gets...tense, is probably the best way to put it, the closer they get to Benny's. He's still in Carencro, in a ramshackle old house off a real winding dirt road that has the Impala getting slapped by branches and vines that would have Dean cursing if the tension in the car wasn't so thick he could cut it with the knife in his boot. Emma sits as straight as the seatbelt allows, her eyes and ears strained in a way that reminds Dean of Bobby's old Rumsfeld, the way he'd gotten when he'd smelled something not human. Nothing _looks_ off when he finally stops the car next to Benny's beat-up old truck, but he grabs the Taurus from the glove box anyway, waits until Cas has gotten the machete from the trunk and taken up station beside Claire's door before he opens Emma's. "Hey, kiddo, you okay?"

Emma's not looking past him; she's staring past him to Benny's front door, which Benny is pushing open and stepping out of just now.

"Dean," he says in his drawl that has Dean's hackles lowering and a grin tugging at his mouth despite everything. "Cas. Y'all brought my god-kids?"

"Yeah, but Emma's not..." Dean hesitates as he opens the door and unstraps her, "so good, right now."

Except before the last word is out Emma's bounding toward Benny, low enough that she's almost on all fours, a strange growling sound coming from her throat. She doesn't lunge right at him, the way Dean's leaping forward to stop her from doing, but stops a foot back from him, still half crouched. She circles him, slowly.

Benny crouches to match her. "Hey, princess." And all of a sudden his hand is on the back of Emma's neck, and her teeth are buried in his other forearm as she glowers up at him.

"Hey," Benny says, then "hey, Emma" more sternly, just a hint of growl. He shakes her by the scruff of her neck, hard enough that Dean's stepping forward with a a _hey, knock it off!_ bark coming to the top of his throat. But before it comes out, Emma's releasing Benny's arm from her mouth, and her glare becomes more of a stare, peering up at him.

"Uh huh," says Benny. "You ain't no alpha yet, _cher._" He gives her neck another gentle shake, affectionate this time. She butts her head against his elbow.

When he scoops her up with a hand, she frowns a little but suffers herself to be held. It's when he presents his smallest finger to her that her gaze goes startled, then suspicious, and she cranes her head back to look up at him. Benny's expression doesn't change.

Carefully, not taking her eyes from him, like she's expecting him to pull away, Emma leans down and closes her mouth around his finger. It's in the moment her little mouth is open that Dean notices tiny sharp teeth behind the others, a bit of dark red gleaming around the gums. He jumps forward, stomach sinking, because _shit-_

"Whoah, brother." Benny lifts his free hand. "Ain't my blood. She's teethin'.'"

"Teething?" Dean echoes.

"Looks like it. Let's get inside so we can get her some ice cubes, eh? C'mere, Claire, girl, how you been doin'?" he says as Claire, whom Cas must have unstrapped, comes running up to him. "You think you can reach the freezer for me? I might have some Rocket Pops in there for my two favorite girls."

Dean feels a little blank, a little sick, as Benny leads Claire inside. But mostly lost.

Cas squeezes his shoulder. "You couldn't have known, Dean."

Dean shakes his head. Goes to the trunk and pulls out the girls' bags.

- o -

They don't really come down to visit Benny often-when Emma has to be in the backseat for more than two hours, she whines like you wouldn't believe (and Cas isn't all that fond of being cooped up in a car either, meticulous as he is about hiding it). But Benny comes to visit them every once in a while. When he does, he insists on doing the cooking, and it's always a treat.

Today, though, the jambalaya he's cooked up sorta tastes like phoenix ash in Dean's mouth. He watches Emma making an expression almost like a smile around the wet washcloth she's got crammed inside her mouth, as she sits between Benny and Claire at Benny's table watching Claire narrate a story about Emma's fork and the macaroni noodles on her plate.

"Lady Emma!" the fork cries. "Help, the Claire Bear's going to eat me!"

"That's right I am!" Claire exclaims in an exaggerated deep voice and sticks the fork in her mouth. "Om nom no-aaahh!" She pulls the fork back out of her mouth, staring at it in pretend shock. "Why can't I eat it?" She bangs it on the table. "It must be magic!"

"It's got Emma spit all over it," Benny says wisely. "Emma spit makes the strongest armor in all the land."

"That must be why the witch kept you in the tower!" Claire says, and trots the fork over to Emma's plate. Emma regards it intently. "Lady Emma, will you join the side of good, and make armor with your spit for all the knights of this table?"

Emma eyes the fork for a moment longer. Then leans forward and hawks a loogie onto her plate. Which has Claire and Benny roaring with laughter and Emma grinning around her red-spotted washcloth and shit, Dean's grinning, too, but it's not all amusement he's got bubbling inside him.

- o -

Emma and Claire are relegated to the backyard as night falls, Emma with a fresh washcloth full of ice cubes, to chase the fireflies flitting around Benny's back yard while the adults take care of the table and dishes. Cas volunteers to do the former while Dean and Benny do the washing and drying, watching the girls run around through the window over the sink.

Benny's quiet for a while, like he always is, drying pans and plates. Then he says, "Ain't so long ago I was standin' right here with Emma wearin' the same face you got on right now."

That's right, because even then Benny had been the one Emma had trusted enough to come to. To take care of her. Dean swipes a soapy hand across his face. "Maybe we should leave her with you, man. Till things are...y'know. Back to normal."

"You think that's gonna make things between you any better?" The slant of Benny's eyebrows says he knows Dean knows better. Dean sighs.

"I know. It's just-she connects with you, Benny."

"There's always gonna be people you relate to a little easier than others. I ain't sayin' that's a good thing or a bad one, it's just how it is. But I know for a fact she'd rather be able to relate to a human or an angel than a bloodsucker."

Dean hears the curl of self-loathing in Benny's voice. He looks over at him. "Vampirate," he reminds him in the stern big brother voice he barely ever gets to use around Benny.

Benny's mouth hooks up, a little. "Who's makin' who feel better here, brother?" and Dean smiles despite himself, flicks some dishwater at Benny.

"Dean," Benny says. "She loves you somethin' fierce. She wouldn't try so hard to make herself into somethin' she ain't if she didn't."

Dean's insides ache. "I don't want her to."

"Then start bein' a little more forceful about it. Ain't nobody showed someone they loved 'em by hangin' back and starin' at 'em like a kicked puppy."

"If only I'd had that piece of guidance earlier," comes Cas's voice from behind them. He's in the doorway holding the last of the silverware, which he tips into the sink.

"I wish you had too," Dean snarks back. Cas pinches his ass and Dean yelps, snaps his towel at Cas's. Cas leaps out of the way at the last second, ducking out the back door into the backyard, and Dean chases him out, grabbing a handful of the soap foam from the sink to smear into Cas's hair. Cas retaliates by sticking an ice cube from Emma's wash cloth down the front of Dean's jeans.

It's the second time they hear Emma laugh.

- o -

"Hey, why don't you come with us?" Dean says the next morning when the girls are finally strapped into their car seats. They're each set up with a huge cup of Benny's homemade French toast sticks and a roll of paper towels, because Jesus _Christ_ are four-year-olds messy, and his dad's old green cooler is sitting in the foot well under Emma's feet, full of ice from Benny's freezer for her teething washcloths. "Vampire goes to Disney World, it'll be like one of those funky specials where Scooby Doo teams up with Batman."

"Let me guess-I'm Batman?" Benny says dryly.

"Uh, _no_."

"Dean is always Batman," Cas informs Benny. "Apparently."

"_Oh_," says Benny, and he and Cas exchange meaningful looks.

"All right," says Dean. "Now you guys are just making fun of me with your eyeballs. I'm outta here."

"That means you owe me two backslaps next time I see you," Benny hollers after him as Dean slides into the Impala without giving him the requisite manly hug. Dean waves a _yeah, yeah_hand through the open window, starting up the engine as Cas clasps Benny's wrist that way they always do before trotting to the car.

Dean sticks his head out his window. "Dude, c'mon! You're really not comin' with us?"

"Benjamin's got his first baseball game this weekend." Benny's grinning just from the mention of it. His great-great-whatever grandkid, who still doesn't know Benny's his great-whatever grandpa, is practically the light of his life. "Elizabeth invited me."

Dean makes an approving sturgeon face. "That beats Mickey Mouse for sure. Have fun, Grandpa."

Benny's kind of beaming. "I'm gonna." He thumps the side of the car, ignoring Dean's squawk. "Now get outta here!"

They're almost back on the highway by the time Dean notices the DVD sitting in Cas's lap. "Hey, what's that?"

Cas picks it up, examining the cover. "Benny said we can't go to Disney World without having seen the classics. It's called... _Tangled_?"

"Dude, that's not a classic!" Dean says indignantly. "It only came out a few years ago or something."

Cas shrugs elegantly. "He says Amelia recommended it to him. She said he might find some of the characters familiar."

Hmm. Not that Dean's about to admit it, but now he's kind of curious.

- o -

Cas and Benny had spent like an hour on the computer the night before, while Dean wrestled the girls into their pajamas. He'd chewed his lip as he tucked them into the nest of blankets on the floor next to the spare bed he and Cas would be sharing, wondering if he should say something like, _Hey, Emma, how about not playing groundhog under the bed tonight, huh?_ But before he could, Claire had octopused around Emma, skinny arms around her and chin shoved over Emma's head. Emma'd just sort of blinked up at him from beneath Claire's hair, looking sort of resigned and a lot sleepy, her little mouth still working tiredly around the washcloth she'd been sucking on since he made them brush their teeth.

And Dean hadn't been able to help it, he kinda knew it would make her flinch, but he leaned down and kissed her forehead anyway, and Claire's, and then fled the room to rejoin Cas and Benny without looking back to see what her expression was. But when he and Cas had come back into the room a few hours later to go to sleep, Emma had still been in the little nest, breathing quietly against Claire's flung-out arm, and Dean had felt so fucking proud it didn't even make sense.

Anyway, while they were on the computer, Cas and Benny had apparently been researching teething remedies. Because Cas has programmed the coordinates of some sort of herbal shop into the GPS, and they're barely ten miles down the highway when the thing's snidely directing Dean to "turn right onto the next exit."

"Can we at least change the voice on this thing?" Dean demands, glaring at the device, then glancing over his shoulder at where Emma's trying to chew on a French toast stick and her washcloth at the same time. His grimace becomes a laugh. "Whoah, slow it down there, Emster!"

Her eyes flick to his. For a minute, she looks puzzled, like _why is he talking to me?_ and then she's pulling the French toast stick out of her mouth and holding out the chewed-up end, wide-eyed, like she's offering to share it with him, and Dean. Fucking. _Melts._

"You're the best kid ever, you know that?" he says as he reaches back over the seat to take the stick and cram it into his mouth, slobber and all. Emma _glows_, and Dean glows back, and Cas sort of cough-laughs into his fist.

"What about _me_?" Claire says plaintively. "I would've shared if I had any left!"

Emma makes a little sound, holds her cup of French toast sticks out toward Claire. Claire's eyes go wide, and she takes one, struggles forward against her straps to shove it over the front seat at Cas. "Here, Cas!"

Cas's eyes widen. He cups the strip of bread carefully, closing his other hand over it like it's a flower he'll treasure forever instead of a piece of fried Wonder bread getting syrup all over his hands. "Thank you, Claire."

Dean elbows him. "You're supposed to eat it, dude."

Cas casts him a narrow look. "Claire gave it to me. I'll do as I wish with it," he says, somewhat imperiously, and suddenly there's more than a little family resemblance between the two of them. It makes Dean laugh, and slide his fingers up into the hair at the nape of Cas's neck, resting his wrist against the top of the bench seat, and even the GPS complaining, "You have missed your turn. Please turn around at the nearest intersection" can't wipe the grin off his face.

- o -

There's a Target in the strip mall where Cas's herbal shop is located. He sends Dean into it with a list as he unstraps Claire and Emma from the back seat, telling Dean they'll meet him in forty-five minutes.

Dean would kind of rather they all got to shop together, but he knows that's pretty sappy, so it's not like he expresses the wish, or anything. He gets the stuff from Cas's list-sunblock and water bottles and kid-sized sunglasses and stuff-pretty quickly and wanders into the Electronics section, drawn by a vague idea that's been percolating in his head since Sam said that soppy thing about Cas and Emma never having gotten to do kid stuff.

He's really not into Disney movies. He sat through enough with Sam when they were younger, plopped on the couch in front of battered old VHS tapes Bobby bought at pawn shops for them to watch while he and John were researching, or planning things. That had been before Bobby and John had their falling out, before Dean had been allowed to go on hunts, even, and he'd hated it, sitting in front of the TV watching some princess sing at a bird while his dad was out there in the dark, hunting. And it was worse because sometimes he'd fall asleep in front of it, and it'd follow him into his dreams, Princess Aurora with her long blonde hair singing, _Hey, Jude_ and he'd wake up crying, Bobby shaking him, and Dean had _hated_ that, hated crying in front of Bobby, hated waking Sam up with his shaky hiccups and seeing the scared, uncertain look on Sam's face. Most of all he hated how Sam always told Dad when he came home, _Dad, Dean__cried__!_, scared and expectant like it was something Dad should fix; hated the hours afterward of not being able to meet Dad's eyes, of feeling ashamed.

No, Dean doesn't like Disney movies at all. But this stuff isn't for him, it's for Emma and Cas, so he grabs pretty much every Disney movie he recognizes off the shelves. The real classics like _Snow White_and _The Little Mermaid_ and _Pinocchio_, and some newer ones he's never seen himself, like _Pocahontas_ and _Mulan_. He even grabs the sequel for that last one, 'cause now that he's actually met her for real, he kind of thinks that if Mary Winchester _had_ been a Disney princess, she wouldn't've been the one that danced with squirrels and shit, she would've been the kick-ass one that took out Genghis fucking Khan.

He skips all the other sequels, though, 'cause everyone knows sequels are for shit, unless you're talking Marvel movies, and speaking of, technically those are Disney movies now too, right? So he tosses _The Avengers_ and _Iron Man_ and _Captain America_ into the cart on top of the Coppertone, figures they can replace the bootleg copies Emma thinks he doesn't know about, stashed up in her room.

He also buys a portable DVD player.

He's out in the Impala, hooking up the DVD console-oh, what a shame, he'll have to unplug the GPS to make room for it-when Cas and the girls come back to the car. Dean hears them far before they reach him: Claire is trying to pick Emma up in that weird way little kids always try to pick up other little kids, and Cas is telling her he doesn't think this is advisable.

"But I can carry her! Look, Emma, I'm carrying you!" She wraps her arms around Emma from behind, pinning Emma's arms to her sides, and heaves backward. Emma's feet leave the ground for about two seconds as Claire staggers backward, then puts her back down, grinning triumphantly. "See? I'll do it again!"

Emma suffers herself to be death-squeezed again, wearing the same tolerant expression as in the blankets the other night, except this time she has some weird tag thing sticking out of her mouth. Also, her lips are blue. Dean squints, hands stilling on the player cords. "Cas, what's in Emma's mouth?"

"Emma ate a smurf!" Claire exclaims, scrambling into the passenger seat over Dean and then over the front seat into the backseat, like she couldn't have just opened the back door to get in instead of introducing Dean's balls to not one but two Jonas Brothers light-up sneakers. He dies quietly in the front seat, clutching his groin in pain. Cas clasps his shoulder in solidarity and offers what looks like the wash cloth full of ice Emma had taken with her into the store. It's mostly melted now, put inside a Ziploc bag Cas got from who knows where, but Dean puts it over his crotch anyway, hissing as Cas rubs his back.

"Claire, perhaps you will be more careful in climbing over Dean in the future?" Cas suggests.

"Uh huh," Claire says, clearly not listening, and finds the bag of DVDs Dean stashed in the back between their car seats. "Hey! Are these for us?"

"Claire," Cas says, going around the front of the car to talk to her, and Dean opens his eyes, looks at Emma, who's still standing there with her purple mouth.

"Hey, kiddo," he says as gently as he can with his groin still feeling he answered a question wrong on Gabriel's stupid Japanese game show. "You wanna c'mere and show me what's in your mouth?"

Emma only takes a little step forward, not big enough to bring her into his reach, but she opens her mouth. There's a little dark pouch packed in against her gums, staining the teeth there dark blue, and Dean's first thought is _shit, hex bag_!

"It's a tea bag," Cas says from the back seat. "Apparently lavender and chamomile are soothing when a child is teething. The store manager allowed us to steep the tea bag using her microwave."

Dean blinks. "Does it help?" he asks Emma. She nods once and clamps her mouth tight around the teabag again.

"Well, good." Dean lets go of the ice bag, reaches for the box between his feet. "I got somethin' else to make you two feel better. Let's get you strapped in and I'll show you."

The Impala's bench seat doesn't have any head rests for them to strap the DVD player's two screens to, so Dean gives them to the girls to hold in their laps so they can watch.

"It's going to harm their vision, Dean," Cas says with a worried frown.

Dean waves off his concern. "It's for two days, Cas. Besides, they'd look awesome with glasses." He grins at Claire's firm "I'm _not_ wearing glasses" and hands the player remote to Emma. He even crouches down next to the car to give her a quick tutorial of what button to push to press play to start the movie, and he thinks she's paying rapt attention, with the way she stares fiercely at the remote as he talks, but the minute he lets go of it, she hands it to Claire, so, well, maybe not. He shakes his head and gets into the front seat; Cas stays in the back, curious to see the movies his students reference so often.

Dean had put _The Little Mermaid_ in first, figured it was the safest, no scenes of dying parents or anything. Half-listening to the tinny dialogue from the front seat, however, he belatedly remembers that the whole movie's about a mythical chick leaving her whole race behind for a human dude and basically getting shafted for it and _crap._ How does he miss these things?

"Hey, uh, Cas?"

"Shhh!" hisses Claire.

"Just pause it for like one second," Dean says.

The tinny voices stop. Cas says, darkly, "_Prince Eric was about to kiss her, Dean_."

Dean blinks. What? Oh. The scene on the boat. "It's okay, he doesn't actually end up doing it. Are you-"

"DEAN!" Claire wails, and Dean realizes he's dropped a spoiler, oops. Glancing back in the rearview mirror he sees Cas is eyeing him with that _I love you but I am going to smite you_look that suggests he is about as thrilled by Dean's spoiler as Claire is, which has Dean grinning cheerfully and going, "Never mind, carry on," because apparently he _didn't_ fuck everything up by letting Cas watch a movie that's practically about him.

Which makes Dean the prince and Sammy the shaggy-haired dog, which has Dean chortling happily in the front seat as Claire and Cas exchange rolled eyes and Claire presses play again.

- o -

Not a sound is heard from the backseat for the next three hours, except for the tinny voices from the DVD player, _Aladdin_ taking over when _The Little Mermaid_ ends.

It gets kind of boring, actually-not that _Dean_ is bored, dude, he spent like four years driving all over the place by himself while Sam was at Stanford, he's pretty sure he can handle two days with his family in the backseat, Jesus.

It's just...really quiet. Fuck, he hasn't been the only one in the front seat since, like-well, the examples that always spring to mind are the ones where Sammy's gone, where he's in the Pit, where he's in the back seat dead-

Cas crawls over the front seat.

Dean does a double take, immediately easing up on the gas pedal. "Dude, what're you doing?"

Cas flops gracelessly onto the passenger's side as Dean carefully slows the car until he gets his seat belt fastened. "I'm joining you."

"You sure about that, dude? You're gonna miss the part where Jafar tries to turn Aladdin into a mermaid."

"Really?" comes Claire's eager voice from the back seat, and Dean has to stifle a laugh. Seriously, has she never seen these things before? Clearly he has assumed too many things about Jimmy Novak's family.

"Oops," he says. "Not really, don't get your hopes up. I was kidding."

Claire wails his name again, but he's pretty sure the foot that kicks the back of his seat is actually Emma's. Which makes him grin.

"Sorry," he says again, then glances at Cas from the corner of his eye as the sounds of _Aladdin_resume behind them. "No, but seriously, dude, Robin Williams is pretty awesome, you're missing out."

"I can watch that at any time," Cas says serenely, leaning forward to adjust the heater. "As I understand it, family vacations are supposed to be about being together, so it would not make sense for you to be here in the front alone."

"Dude." Dean scoffs. "It's no big, I'm used to being-"

"Dean." Cas smoothes a hand up the inside of his thigh. "Are you sure you want to argue with me?"

"Um." Dean swallows and lets Cas intertwine their fingers. "No."

- o -

They stop in Tallahassee for the night. Claire doesn't want to go out for dinner, would rather stay in the hotel watching more movies, and she makes her wishes known, loudly, as Castiel unstraps her from the car seat.

"NOOOO!" she wails, kicking her feet. She hangs fast to the seatbelt as Castiel tries to pull her out.

Emma looks alarmed, looking back and forth between Claire and Castiel, as if unsure whether she should attack him to protect Claire. She bares her teeth, a predator warning off a threat, and that's when Dean snaps, "Claire!"

She stops struggling, goes limp and wide-eyed.

Dean forces his voice to be gentle. "You're scaring Emma, kid."

Emma's eyes flick toward him. Claire's, in turn, go to her, and in a second, she's big sister again, saying, "It's okay, Emma-jemma" and hugging her. Emma sort of blinks but lets herself be duck-walked into the diner as Claire keeps her arms wrapped tight around her, and they get an "Awww" from the hostess that has Claire hugging her even tighter, proudly.

"Claire," Cas says as they wait to be shown to a booth. "I think you are impeding Emma's ability to inspire."

"I don't know what that means," Claire says defiantly.

"It means she can't breathe," Dean says, arching his brow with a tone that says, _you know exactly what Cas is telling you, now listen_ that he usually has to use on Emma.

"They are so CUTE!" the hostess says as she seats them. "How old are they?"

"Five," Claire says. "It's my birthday."

"It is?" says the hostess, wide-eyed, and Dean resists the urge to slap a hand over his eyes because oh my God, was Claire originally like this as a kid, or is this all his influence? You corrupt everything you touch, no freaking kidding, he's made Jimmy Novak's angel-kid a con artist. "Then we better get you a birthday milkshake!"

"Claire," Cas says firmly. His voice is all sternness. "That is untrue. Apologize for deceiving Denise." For that is the name on the hostess's nametag.

Claire's face turns mutinous. But she turns to Denise and says sweetly, "Sorry, Denise. I was lying. It's really my sister's birthday."

Castiel looks pained at this further falsehood. And the hostess looks faintly confused, like she's not sure if she should believe it this time, looking at Dean and Cas for a cue. Dean spreads his hands in a _What can I say, it's the truth_gesture, and the waitress turns her full smile back on, bending slightly to meet Emma's eyes. "Well, hi, birthday girl," she says. "What do you say to a milkshake?"

Emma hides her face in Cas's elbow.

"She's really shy," Claire says in her authoritative big sister voice. "That's why I was gonna pretend it was my birthday for her. But she's four and she likes chocolate milkshakes. Not strawberry 'cause strawberry makes her itch."

"I understand," the hostess says in a conspiratorial tone. "I'll get right on it."

She leaves them with their menus, and a set of crayons and paper menus for both of the girls. Emma keeps her face hidden in Cas's sleeve until after their waitress has come and gone with their orders, and only Claire crawling under the table ("Claire!" Dean says in exasperation) to worm herself between Emma and Cas gets Emma to lift her head. They start drawing on their menus. Dean sits on his side of the booth and doesn't envision squeezing onto Cas's other side, nope, not even once.

A moment later, he feels something sneaking up under his jeans leg. A familiar foot. "Cas," he hisses.

"The only other people seated in our section have extremely poor vision," Cas murmurs, which, okay. Dean lets Cas do what he will, only to sit up straight in his seat when he sees their waitress approaching with plates.

"Okay, Claire, back to your seat," he says, maybe a little too loudly, scooting over to make room for her as she sighs and crawls back under the table.

When the waitress finishes distributing plates, there's still something left on her tray. A big chocolate milkshake in a tall glass, with syrup drizzled on a mountain of whipped cream, and a cherry. "And where the birthday girl?" she asks kindly, eyes twinkling. "I heard she might be hiding, since she's kind of shy."

"There she is!" Claire points across the table where Emma's peering over Cas's sleeve at the milkshake.

"Oohh," says the waitress, and leans to place the milkshake on top of Emma's menu. Then she sees what's drawn on it. "Oh, wow! Did you draw these?"

Dean cranes his head to look. And blinks, because for a four-year-old, those are some pretty damned good Ariel and Jasmine likenesses.

Emma nods once, quick.

"They're so good!" the waitress says. "Wow, you must be a real artist!"

Emma's face breaks into a grin. She mashes her face into Cas's arm, shaking it in soundless delight.

And Dean wants. Oh God, does he want. He hardly notices the waitress setting the milkshake down by Cas's glass and telling them to enjoy their meal, too fixated by the way Emma holds onto Cas so trustingly and the ache in his chest from how badly he wants to have that, too. Only when Claire tugs on his sleeve and says, "Dean, we gotta say Grace," does he snap out of it, look over at her.

"Um," he says, and remembers that this Claire hasn't had her faith cracked yet, that as a child Claire grew up with a God-fearing mother and father who thanked God for every meal. "We give thanks for this food," he says quickly and clumsily and self-consciously, "and for Cas and for Claire and for Emma because they are such good girls-and such great artists," he finishes lamely.

But Emma is peeking over Cas's sleeve at him. And he catches her doing it several more times, throughout dinner, and as they drive back to that night's motel, like she's seeing something in him she never saw before.


	6. Chapter 6

Dean turns the DVD case over in his hand, eyeing the princess's long hair, and barks out a laugh. "They made a frickin' movie about Sam's _hair_, Cas, this is awesome. Let's get this baby started so I can tease him out of his long-tressed gourd."

Cas is frowning down at the laptop on the hotel table. They'd realized when they tried to bring the portable DVD player with its two screens in from the car that they didn't have the proper cord to plug it in inside. Which left Claire's laptop to watch _Tangled_ on, as Cas and Claire were adamant they wanted to watch it tonight and Dean was secretly kind of curious. "I'm not sure how we are going to watch on this. It may be too small for all of us to be able to see."

"Omg, Cas," Claire says, taking hold of the laptop in her little arms. Dean exchanges a look with Cas, mouthing _omg?_ "It's easy, look."

She dumps the laptop at the center of the bed, scrambling up onto it to peel the covers down. She settles in the center of the pillows and pats either side of the mattress beside her, imperiously. "You guys sit _here_." When they hesitate, she glares. "Come _on_, I wanna watch!"

Cas obeys, climbing onto the bed on Claire's other side. He pushes the pillows up to cushion as he leans back against the headboard. Claire flops backward against his chest, hard enough that he lets out an "oof!"

"You're too skinny, Cas," she complains. "Dean is softer."

Dean splutters at this. Cas is laughing into his hand, though, and that's worth everything and anything. He climbs onto the bed next to them, stretching his leg out so his socked toes brush Cas's bare ones behind the laptop.

Claire pats the space between her and Dean. "C'mon, Emma!"

Emma eyes them all uncertainly from where she's standing by the sink in her pajamas, a t-shirt and a pair of fuzzy red pants with puppies on them that Claire had picked out. For a minute, looking at the apprehension on her face, Dean slides to the edge of the bed and is about to push back off of it altogether.

But Emma surprises him. She crawls carefully to the space between him and Claire. She doesn't wriggle under the blankets the way Claire has, and she leaves a wide space between her and Dean, leaning close against Claire, but still. This is...way more than he expected. Or dared to hope.

Claire presses play. The movie starts, music playing. Cas rumbles, "You won't be able to see from there, Dean."

Dean hesitates at the edge of the bed, then eases carefully closer to the rest of them. He can see Emma' reflection in the momentarily dark screen, and her face looks tense but not alarmed, not like she's going to jackrabbit away. He keeps a little space between them but leans back into the headboard, lets himself lean against the pillow behind her.

"_This is the story of a girl named Rapunzel, and it starts with the sun..."_

- o -

It doesn't take long for Dean to start laughing. Because forget Sam; this Rapunzel, running around delighting over _grass_, of all things, is like a freakin' parody of Cas after he became human. _"Dean. Look. There are five petals on this flower, Dean. Look. This flower has_six_petals, Dean."_He'd been all wide-eyed and eager and in love with grass and butterflies and shit. "It's like they decided to make a movie about you, Cas."

"Strange," retorts Cas, "I was just contemplating how closely the heroine resembles you."

"Uh, _no_," says Dean, sitting up a little, but Claire, the little traitor, lets out a high peal of laughter and goes, "You do! You do!"

"No," Dean tries to correct her, but she's on a roll now: "And Cas is Eugene because he loves you, and I'm Maximus because I'm awesome, and Emma's the chameleon because she's quiet and little!"

Dean looks down just in time to see Emma making a face like _I'm not that little_, and it _is_ a lot like the disgruntled faces the chameleon makes, so that Dean is laughing and ruffling her hair without thinking, and she just makes a disgruntled noise, and it's nothing but it's everything.

Everything.

- o -

Sometime while Dean's showering the next morning, Cas finds the time to log onto Claire's laptop and download what has to be every Disney movie soundtrack known to man. Dean doesn't find this out until they are actually in the Impala, pulling onto the interstate while it's still dark to drive the final four hours to Disney World. Cas plugs his iPod into the dock Sam had given him when he'd declared that if anyone would be able to drag Dean's car into this century it would be Cas, and "Part of Your World" fills the car. Claire starts singing along, and Emma kicks her feet in time to it. Dean mutters something grumpily about how if they're so energetic at four in the morning maybe one of _them_ can drive. But it's more bark than bite because the tattoo Emma's feet are beating into the back of his seat in time to the music feels good, feels like the way she'd looked at him in the diner yesterday.

(That is not to say, however, that by the third time "Under the Sea" comes up on the playlist Dean doesn't propose loudly that Cas unhook the iPod so that Claire and Emma can watch _Mulan_ on the DVD player before they get to the park.)

- o -

Once they're parked-"eighteen dollars?" Dean sputters. "To park a fucking _car_?"-and have their tickets, Cas heads toward the bank of park maps located near the bathrooms. Dean pulls off the messenger bag they'd dumped teen!Emma's stuff out of to make room for the day's supplies and sets it on a bench, digging out one of the cans of sunscreen. "All right, kiddos, spray time."

The girls ignore him. The bench is set against a circular hip-high wall surrounding a bush trimmed into a Mickey Mouse shape, and they've climbed onto it. Claire's chasing Emma around the circle shouting, "I'll make a maaaaaan out of yoooouuuu!"

Dean grins and leans against the bench for a second to take it in, the sound of his kids laughing and the fresh feeling of the morning, the nine o'clock sunlight and wide blue sky, the way it feels like he's looking at the world through a drop of water, clean and clear.

Then-after first glancing around to make sure there's no one he could possibly know nearby, just other tourists is fanny packs and pushing strollers-he goes, "Let's get down to business!" and grabs them both.

Claire explodes in delighted laughter, kicking the air as he holds them up. "To defeat the Huns!" she cries, and elbows him until Dean rumbles, "Did they send me daughters?"

"YES!" she shouts. Dean can't help but laugh as he sets them back on the wall, giving them Looks to make sure they stay put.

"Okay, _daughters_," he says. "Stay put so we can get some sunscreen on you. Arms up!"

Claire stretches her arms above her head like she's trying to reach the sky or something. Emma follows suit a beat behind, watching Claire to see how it's done. They're both wearing tank tops-apparently Florida didn't get the memo that it's fucking _January_, since it's like eighty degrees out-so Dean sprays them from pits to wrists. He still remembers the summer Sammy got sunburn under his arms and whined like a bitch for three days about how he couldn't lift his arms to help clean the guns because it hurt too bad.

Claire laughs at the sensation of the spray hitting her armpits, squirming, and Dean smiles again as he motions for them to turn around so he can spray the backs of their legs. Emma jumps when he sprays the back of her legs, a little breath escaping her, and suddenly Dean remembers that Lydia was ticklish behind her knees, too, the way she'd laughed sudden and loud when he'd drawn his mouth across the skin there.

For the first time, the memory of that night doesn't make him feel like throwing up. Just makes him feel...kind of grateful. Because no matter what else had happened, he wouldn't have gotten this, Emma and Claire and Cas, without that.

"Dean," Claire says, pulling him out of his thoughts. He blinks up at her. "You forgot our faces!"

Dean fakes a gasp. "I did!" He squirts a bunch of sunscreen into his hands, setting the can down on the bench, and rubs it sloppily on both their noses, grinning when Emma wrinkles hers under his palm and Claire laughs. "Ears, too." He pats some onto the shells of their ears, marveling again at how tiny they are, and smears the rest across their foreheads like that baboon did with Simba, though the reference is probably lost on them since they've only watched the princess movies so far. Lion King'll have to be the next one on the list, he decides. Cas'll like it, too, Zazu'll be right up his alley. Dean snickers to himself.

"You require sunscreen as well, you know," comes a voice from his side, and he turns to see Cas has returned, holding a sheaf of maps. He sets them down to pick up the can of sunscreen from the bench.

"I wanna do it!" Claire cries. She jumps down from the wall and takes the sunscreen from Cas. Dean sighs dramatically and holds his arms out at his sides.

Claire is...enthusiastic. Dean ends up having to stumble and cough his way out of the cloud of sunscreen, so thick he has to swipe it off his eyelashes. Emma's laughing fit to bust a gut now, jumping down from the wall to run back and forth through the cloud as Claire continues to spray it. They're going to use up all the sunscreen, and they're getting weird looks from the people around them, but Dean doesn't really care, chuckles as he swipes the excess sunscreen from his hands onto Cas's wrists, as Cas wipes the extra off his chin.

Dean's just wearing a t-shirt with his jeans, but Cas has got on a thin white button-up with the sleeves rolled up, so just his forearms need rubbing down with the sunblock, plus his head and neck. He obligingly inclines his head for Dean to get at the back of his neck with his screen-slimed hands. He's also nabbed a spare pair of Dean's aviators from the Impala's glove box, so Dean can see his own sunglassed reflection in the lenses, looking flushed and happy as he _accidentally_rubs some of the sunblock into Cas's hair to spike up the way he likes. Cas retaliates by grabbing Dean's baseball cap off his head.

Dean squawks, snatching it back. "Dude, if you take this thing I will freckle so bad."

"And that is a bad thing why?" Cas says lowly as Dean shoves the cap back over his hair, and dude, come on, how is Dean supposed to concentrate on being at Disney when Cas is doing that with his voice?

He gives Cas a _you are so in for it later_ look and grabs the assortment of maps to show the girls. They appear to have run out of sunscreen, if the cessation of the hissing spray can and the mournful way Claire is shaking it are any indication. Emma has stopped running to glare at the spray can in Claire's hand. Her nice neat ponytail, which Dean had spent like half an hour on that morning, is practically coated with sunscreen. Dean swipes it semi-clean with a sweep of his hand,and she blinks up at him with white eyelashes. He laughs and hands her off to Cas, who pulls a tissue from his pocket and crouches to pat delicately at her face as she wrinkles her nose again.

Claire climbs onto the bench and squirms under Dean's arm to look at the maps in his hand. "We want princess stuff!"

Emma nods fervently from where Cas is still rubbing her face.

"Cas, you good with princess stuff?"

"Of course, Dean." Cas finishes with Emma's face and throws the tissue into the trash can next to the bench. "There appear to be two ways for us to get there. Would the three of you prefer the ferry or the monorail?"

"Ferry," Claire says as Emma points at the monorail. _Uh oh_, Dean thinks as Emma lowers her arm, looking hesitant.

But Cas is squinting toward the ferry entrance. "It appears that the ferry has just departed. To save time, perhaps we should compromise and take the monorail now and the ferry when we return. Does this sound acceptable?"

Claire looks a _little_ bummed, sticking out her lower lip, but she sighs, "_Okay_" long-sufferingly and grabs Emma's hand to pull her toward the monorail entrance. Dean resists the urge to reach for Cas's hand in turn as they head up the ramp, because the monorail isn't a plane, but it's not exactly solid ground, either.

Cas catches his hand anyway, like he knows what Dean's thinking. Dean shifts a little to keep it at least partly concealed by their sides because the last thing he wants is his family's first amusement park experience being screwed up by a "Mommy, why are those two guys holding hands?" But the chattering families around them don't seem to notice anything, and the monorail operator doesn't blink twice at his and Cas's joined hands as he gestures them into the waiting car.

It's still early enough that they get a whole compartment to themselves. Emma plasters her face against the window as Claire fastens her hand around one of the poles and begins to swing around it, singing something about slugs cutting rugs. Dean and Cas grab onto another, Dean pushing the messenger bag to one side so he and Cas can sway into each other as the monorail lurches into motion.

Any apprehension Dean might have had he is distracted from by the sound of Emma beginning to laugh as the parking lot zooms by underneath them. She pats her hand on the window happily. Dean's pretty sure she's not aware she's doing it, not till Claire swings into her, baby-talking, "Emma likes the monorail, yes she does! Yes she does!" and then Emma blinks, and cranes her head back to look at them, at Dean and Cas grinning at her from the pole. But before she can do anything else, Claire is swinging around again, saying, "Look, Emma! Try this!" and pulling Emma to one of the poles to swing around with her.

When the monorail stops a few moments later and the doors open, it doesn't take a genius to understand the looks on their little sunscreen-covered faces: They want to go on again.

"C'mon, guys, this isn't even a _ride_," Dean protests.

But Cas is looking a little wistful now, too, running his hand along the monorail car as they step away from it. And dammit, Cas, _fine_-Dean huffs and herds them all back into the line to board the monorail they just got off of.

Cas smiles serenely and kisses the side of Dean's head.

- o -

Main Street, U.S.A., when they _finally_ get there, smells fucking amazing. There's caramel apples, and popcorn, and it's only nine in the morning, but that guy at the cart by the candy shop is already cooking funnel cakes and fuuuuuck, "Do you guys just wanna go do your rides and meet me back here in the afternoon?"

Cas gives him a _I refuse to let your gastrointestinal system control our lives, Dean_ look. "You may have a funnel cake after we have gone on two rides, Dean. No sooner."

Dean groans, but Cas ignores him, pushing his sunglasses up his nose to frown down at the Magic Kingdom map.

"The reviews I read online stated that the lines for the attractions are often in excess of an hour. Perhaps the best approach would be for each of us to choose the ride we most wish to go on and go to those first in order to ensure we get a chance to enjoy them."

"Sounds like a plan," Dean says, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from the sugar-covered funnel cake the vendor is handing to a totally undeserving dude in a red Mickey Mouse shirt. "What do you think, midgets?"

Claire drags her bottom eyelids down with her fingers and crosses her eyes. "I want the ghooooooooooooost one!"

Emma sidles away from her. Dean starts laughing at the expression on her face and can't stop. Emma gives him a similar look and sidles toward Cas, who absently lifts a hand to rest on her head as he studies the map.

"I would like to see this Swiss Family Robinson house," he announces, looking up. "Dean, what would you like?"

Dean grins and adjusts the bag strap against his chest. "Who, me? I'm good with whatever you guys pick. Swiss Family Robinson sounds cool."

Cas stares him down. "Dean."

"Uh." Dean rubs the back of his head. "The pirate ride's always sounded kind of cool."

It's hard to tell what with the sunglasses and all, but he's pretty sure Cas is smirking. Dean wrinkles his nose at him in response, then looks at Emma, who's studying the map in Cas's hand. "What about you, kiddo?"

Cas crouches so that he can hold the map flat for her. Emma points at the pink-filled area nestled in the northernmost part of the map._Fantasyland_.

"I'm glad you picked that area," Cas tells her seriously. "I wish to visit it as well."

Emma pats his arm.

- o-

Dean's kind of bummed at first, finding out the Swiss Family Robinson House Cas chose isn't actually a ride, just some sort of walk-through. But Cas seems pretty transfixed; he takes off his sunglasses to squint into the little rooms built into the tree behind rope and lingers in front of one room in particular for what feels like ever.

"Dean."

Dean's busy leaning over the banister to see if there was an alligator in the water because he swears he just saw one, but Disney wouldn't keep alligators where little kids could just fall in, right? "Hey, Emster, come away from the edge, okay? You're giving Dad a heart attack."

She makes a face at him and scurries down the stairs after Claire. Dean turns to Cas. "What, babe?"

Cas is still staring into the room. "We need a hammock."

Dean follows his gaze. "How're we both gonna fit in a hammock, Cas?" he says dryly, knowing exactly where Cas's mind is going.

Cas smiles slyly. "Very cozily."

Dean rolls his eyes and skims a hand across Cas's midsection. "I claim top."

"Only in Fantasyland," Cas retorts. He pecks Dean on his indignantly parted lips and slips past him to follow the girls. Dean flicks him in the ass on the way in retaliation, which only makes Cas grin and saunter in front of him. _Ass._

Heh. Ass.

When they catch up to the girls, Claire's got her face pushed against the rope netting that keeps people from entering the treehouse rooms. "Why can't we go inside?" she complains. Her voice sounds like she's got a mouthful of rope, which, considering it's Claire, that's probably exactly what she's doing.

"Claire, you don't know what kind of stuff's touched these ropes," Dean informs her. "You could be French-kissing with cockroach legs right now and not know it."

Claire pulls off, spitting. "GROSS!"

Dean rolls his eyes.

Emma tugs on Cas's pant leg. She has a horrified look on her face like _oh my God, is he serious?_

"Dead serious, Emster," Dean declares, while Cas says, "It is true that we have no way of knowing what has been on that rope. You should always remember, girls, it is always safest not to put things in your mouth unless you know where they have been."

Dean snickers. "I think it's a little early for the sex talk, Cas."

Cas looks perplexed. "It is never too early for such a talk. Emma, Claire, should you begin to feel attr-"

"Hey, look at that water wheel!" Dean exclaims hastily. "Isn't that cool? Go see if you can reach the buckets, girls!"

He sees the moment he turns back that Cas has been pulling his leg. His eyes are dancing. "You are such a _dick_," Dean complains, and stomps after the girls again.

The Robinsons' kitchen area, unlike the bedrooms, is not roped off. Emma is taking advantage of this fact by trying to lift a bowl of fake fruit that's glued to the table. Claire abandons the attempt, coming over to pull imperiously at Dean's jean leg. He obediently stoops to pick her up.

"You didn't show us this movie, Dean," she informs him, peering into her reflection on his sunglasses. "Why'd the Robinsons make all this stuff? Were they tree-huggers?"

Dean frowns, trying to remember the movie. All he can really recall is a tiger pit and sugar cane. "I think they were on a boat," he says. "But there was a big storm, and it blew them off course from where they were supposed to, so they ended up shipwrecked on an island instead."

Claire's still studying her reflection. "They weren't supposed to be on the island?"

"They didn't really wanna be there at first," Dean says. "Cuz there was like no food or houses or anything, so they had to figure out how to work together to make somewhere to live." He squeezes her leg and turns slightly so they can take in the huge tree house around them. "And they made it pretty awesome, huh?"

"Sorta like us," Claire says, and wow, Dean had forgotten that kids sorta hit you out of nowhere with stuff like that, the things that got right into your ribcage and made your heart go all tight and girly. "We weren't supposed to be a family but we made it awesome, too."

His chest hurts. "That's exactly right, baby girl," he murmurs. Holds her tighter, inhales the sunscreen-and-fruit-punch scent of her. He hadn't known it was possible to feel this full, this filled up with all the things he's ever wanted and ones he hadn't known he did.

Claire watches him back, staring like she's trying to figure him out, and Cas comes up behind them. He strokes his thumb down the back of Dean's neck and rests his forehead to Dean's temple as they both look at Claire, and she stares back solemnly. Then she laughs and head butts them both, and then she's gasping, "Emma, look!" and struggling down out of Dean's arms to poke a furry caterpillar that's wriggling across the table.

- o -

One Pirates of the Caribbean ride and stop for funnel cake later, Dean's still hungry. So are the girls, at least if Emma's unhappy expression is any indication, so they stop at the Pinocchio restaurant in Fantasyland for lunch.

It's located right by the It's a Small World ride, with part of the restaurant's eating area looking out over the ride's waiting area, the music audible as they eat. Cas is eyeing the ride curiously, and yeah, Dean wants Cas to experience The Happiest Place on Earth and all, but he doesn't want him to experience it badly enough that he's willing to listen to that song for as long as it'll take them to get through that friggin' long-ass line. So he scoots his chair closer to Cas's and shoves a knee over his to distract him and says around his burger, "Here we are in Fantasyland, Emma, you know what you wanna do?"

Cas's attention snaps back to Emma, though Dean also feels a hand creep under his knee, cupping it. He grinds down and Cas retaliates by creeping his hand higher. Aaaaaand they are in a public place, so Dean drags his leg back off Cas's and sits straight in his seat, adjusting his jeans.

Emma is sucking on the washcloth Dean brought in the messenger bag along with a thermos of the lavender tea Cas had steeped in a gas station microwave on the way to the park. She hasn't seemed like her teeth are bothering her today, but for once in his life, Dean'd rather err on the side of caution.

Claire's taken it upon herself to fish ice cubes out of Dean's Coke with her fork for Emma to put inside the washcloth. Most of them, right now, are melting on the tray next to Emma's half-eaten chicken fingers. Dean moves the map so it doesn't get the melting ice water on it, but Emma reaches out a pudgy hand and pulls it back, eyes intent on it, sucking all the while.

"She says you'll find out," Claire announces, though of course Emma has said nothing at all.

Dean glances at Cas to see what he thinks of Claire's Emma-whisperer routine and also takes the opportunity to steal one of his French fries. Cas retaliates by tugging a ring of onion out of Dean's burger, leaning across him to reach it. This close he smells like sunscreen and sweat, and a big part of Dean would be totally okay with just sitting here the rest of the day eating each other's food and watching Claire try to stick bits of lettuce in Emma's hair without her noticing and listening...well, not listening to "It's A Small World" play over and over again, but maybe if he put his phone in the middle of the table and set it to play "Ramble On" on repeat.

Eventually, though, Claire gets bored with sticking lettuce in Emma's hair and starts trying to stick ketchup in it instead, and Cas gets stern, and Emma gets messy.

Dean takes her to the bathroom to wash up while Cas and Claire take care of taking their things to the trash. She's only got a few droplets of ketchup in her hair; Cas caught Claire before she could squirt the whole packet out, but after all their walking around her sunscreen-stiff ponytail's gotten kind of messy and lopsided. Dean takes it out and combs it out as well as he can with his fingers before putting it in a short braid that just barely clears the back of her neck. Emma turns her head back and forth like she's testing the weight of it, then eyes a dude who steps inside to use the restroom.

Dean mutters, "Oops, sorry," and swings her off the counter and back outside to join Cas and Claire.

Who are now both staring at It's A Small World.

"Dude, are you serious?" Dean says in some despair. "You guys didn't get enough of that song inside?"

Emma wrinkles her nose. Dean takes this to mean she doesn't want to listen to go on that ride either.

"How 'bout this?" he says. "Me 'n Emster here'll go find another ride to go on while you guys do that one. Call us when you get out and we'll meet up again, sound good?"

"Sounds good!" Claire says and drags Cas down into the line without giving him a chance to argue.

Dean grins. "And that, Emma, is what we call _whipped_."

Emma rolls her eyes, which makes Dean grin harder. He pulls the folded Magic Kingdom map out of his back pocket. She points at something on it, and when Dean sees what it is, his grin fades.

Maybe he should've agreed to go on It's a Small World after all.

- o -

Pro: The Dumbo ride line is so long they might not get to the front of it before Claire and Cas get out of It's a Small World.

Con: The parents waiting in it line look like they might try to cut a bitch if Dean tried to get Cas to cut into the line to take over for him and go on the ride with Emma.

Seriously. This is a hardcore line. The clock at the entrance said a 60-minute wait, but it's been half an hour and Dean feels like they've barely moved a foot. He's getting a little worried, too, because he doesn't think Emma's doing so well in the crush of people without Claire around to distract her. She's still as stone, moving only when Dean does, to take the incremental steps forward in line. Her eyes are darting, and in the hand he keeps clutched inside his, he can feel the pulse in her little palm banging against his fingers like a wild thing. When he crouches down to ask her if she wants to get out of line and go back to get Claire and Cas, she flinches back reflexively.

And it hurts. Fucking hurts, to see his kid like this, and to know somewhere deep inside him that someone did something to her to make her this way. Reminds him of the middle school he went to in Omaha that was across the street from Sammy's elementary school, where he could watch through the window of his math class to see Sammy's class let out for morning recess. That had been one of their worse times, the money tightest and Dad gone the longest, and they'd had to stretch the money, rinse their clothes out in the shower and let them hang dry on the curtain rod instead of spending quarters on a Laundromat. They'd smelled of mildew and rust, and even if Dean could deal with being looked down on for it, it didn't make watching Sam hesitate alone at the edge of the playground, ignored by all the other kids, any easier.

Dean hadn't been able to do anything then, and he doesn't know what to do now, how to fix for Emma what he wasn't around to stop. He feels like he's watching Sammy shivering through the window all over again.

He keeps his hand loose around hers. "Do you wanna leave?"

Her eyes flick to his. Then she shakes her head stubbornly. Stares determinedly ahead as one of the ten-year-olds behind them jostles into her, shouting at his mom that he wants a Mickey Mouse bar.

Dean clears his throat and straightens, swallowing the hot spit that keeps pooling in his mouth as he thinks about flying around in the air in one of those cheap little Dumbo cars. Because this? This is the one thing he can do for her, even if it scares the shit out of him.

- o -

When they finally climb into their little Dumbo thing, which shakes totally unreassuringly as he steps onto it, he can already taste his cheeseburger from lunch at the back of his mouth. He is going to throw up over the side of the elephant onto all the moms and dads and grandparents crowded down on the ground with their cameras and cell phones to tape their kids, and one of them is going to catch his humiliation on film and post it on YouTube and then Emma and Claire will see it and never let him live it down for the rest of his life.

Okay. So the thought makes him smile a little. Mostly because he can imagine the exact evil grin Emma will get, and how she'll wait until Claire's eating something before showing her the YouTube clip so that Claire'll squirt it out her nose again and shit, he should probably make sure he changes the tablecloth when they get home because he kind of actually likes the one on the table right now-

The Dumbo judders. He seizes the safety bar. His heart is slamming in his mouth, hot and wet. "Shit shit shit-"

Emma's hand closes around the bar next to his. He looks over at her, forcing on a smile. "You excited, kiddo?" His voice is kind of a whisper.

Emma touches his hand, tentatively. It's an _are you okay?_ touch, uncertain and scared. Then her eyes sharpen and she spins around, little braid slapping against his shoulder.

Dean lifts his chin from his chest to see what she's turned to look at. Swallows again, because holy shit they're like ten feet off the ground already, the metal arms groaning, and he is definitely, definitely going to throw up.

Then he sees what Emma's looking at. Cas and Claire are on the ground outside the ride enclosure, behind some red-haired lady leaning on a stroller. Cas has Claire on his shoulders like Emma was on Dean's before, and Claire's waving at them so hard it looks like she's about to slip sideways off Cas.

"EMMAAAAAA!" comes the shout, barely audible above the clicks and whirring of the ride and shouts of parents telling their kids to look at the camera and smile. "DEEEAAAN!"

Then they're out of sight as the ride begins to turn, picking up speed. Dean's stomach flattens itself against his belly, but this time he knows where to look in the crowd as the Dumbo car comes back around. Cas's eyes find his immediately, and his warm smile says he knows exactly how close to jelly Dean's insides are right now and that he's proud of Dean for going on the ride in spite of it. Which is stupid, because Dean doesn't need Cas to be proud of him for something like this

He doesn't need to meet Cas's eyes, either, every time they make a loop around. But he does it anyway, grinning when he sees Cas roll his eyes at him as Claire throws them a particularly exuberant wave and nearly topples off Cas's shoulders before he catches her.

It reminds Dean to look down at Emma. Her eyes are crinkled up in a smile as she looks at Claire; she's kicking her feet in that unconscious way he's come to associate with her being excited about something. She closes her eyes as the car dips; Dean clutches the bar, but Emma flails her feet harder and opens her mouth like she's trying to catch the air in it, like she wants to suck it all in. She lets out this weird high-pitched sound that Dean doesn't even realize is coming from her until her eyes fly open and flick up to his guiltily as her legs stop moving. Dean just smiles at her, kicks her foot with his own.

She peers at him for a minute, then there's the sound of Claire singing, "Emmaaaaaa" from below them again, and Emma's back to kicking as she cranes to look over the side of the car for Claire and Cas.

- o -

Claire comes running to meet them as they exit the enclosure after the ride. She shoves past the children streaming out. "Emma, we got you cotton candy!"

Cas is waiting more sedately for them a few steps away, holding up said bag of pink candy floss. He lets the girls fall upon it like a couple of wolves as he goes to take Emma's messenger bag from Dean, like he can tell Dean's still feeling a little unsteady on his feet. Takes his hand, too, and subtly leans into him so Dean can lean back.

"That was very brave of you."

Dean scowls half-heartedly. "I'm not five, Cas."

Cas's lips brush across his temple, his thumb stroking down the back of Dean's neck. "I am quite aware of your age, Dean."

Dean ducks his head into the touch. Admits lowly, "Don't think I'd've agreed to it if I'd known it was what she wanted ahead of time."

Cas hums and presses a kiss with just a hint of suction to the side of Dean's mouth. His breath smells like cotton candy, which, okay, the mental image of Cas eating cotton candy is simultaneously bewildering and hot, and Dean really wants to grab his ass.

"The feeling is mutual."

Dean lifts his eyes from Cas's jeans to his eyes. "Dude. You don't know what I was thinking."

Cas's eyes gleam behind Dean's aviators. "Are you sure?"

Dean's about to make a "profound bond" crack, but Claire's shout interrupts them. "Ewww! Cas, look what Emma did!"

Cas turns. Emma's smiling, her teeth pink with sugar. When Claire elbows her, she opens her mouth wide. There's a huge glistening ball of cotton candy inside, compacted and crystallized from her saliva. It's pretty gross. But also kind of impressive, Dean considers, looking at the now empty cotton candy bag in Claire's hand. She fit the whole friggin' bag of cotton candy in her mouth.

And if he's reading her right, she looks pretty smug about that fact.

"That's my girl," he says, grinning, and it's sheer reflex, somehow, to scoop her up and set her on his shoulders the way Cas held Claire. She goes panic-rigid for a second. Then, as he reaches up to hold onto her legs, she grabs onto his ears under his hat and pulls herself up, correcting her center of gravity like a pro.

He squeezes one little sneaker. "Good?"

She kicks it lightly against his chest: _yes._ Dean squeezes it again and turns them to face Cas and Claire. "All right, guys, time for Claire's ride?"

Claire is already scrambling her way up Cas's leg to be picked up, too. "I want to go on Dumbo too!"

Cas deposits her neatly on his shoulders. "More than Haunted Mansion?"

Claire considers this, looking at the line for the Dumbo ride, which has expanded to a 75-minute wait, according to the sign. She sighs. "I guess not."

"A sound decision," Cas says, and Claire looks mollified. Then she exclaims, "Mush!" kicking her feet against Cas's chest, and Cas is rolling his eyes and starting forward, and Dean's laughing silently so hard at how whipped Claire has Cas that Emma has to wrap her arms around his head from falling off as his shoulders shake.

- o -

Sadly, the laughter doesn't last long.

One minute Dean's in the Haunted Mansion, grimacing at the corny Ghost Host voice telling them to note that the room has no windows and no doors, and the next he's crouching trying to soothe a sobbing Claire as the Ghost Host's fake body dangles from the ceiling above them.

"I wanna go," she stutters over the fake sounds of clattering bones around them. "I wanna g-g-_goooo_!"

In the near-darkness, Cas looks as alarmed as Dean feels. The people around them are casting them simultaneous sympathetic and contemptuous looks, and it's only then that Dean remembers his kids actually look like kindergarteners right now, and maybe a haunted house, even one as cheesy as this, isn't the smartest place to bring a pair of four-year-olds, even if they are really sixteen. But that's all peripheral, smushed in the corner of his brain as he panics over how to make Claire stop sobbing into Cas's shirt and rubbing her back soothingly and where the fake butler is to let them out of the room and fuck can those dumb noises please _stop_-

"You stop!"

The voice is off pitch, weirdly high. It takes Dean a minute to realize it's _Emma's._

"You stop scare Claire!" She's got her fists clenched and she's shouting at the ceiling like she thinks the Ghost Host is still up there. She looks dangerous, too, like her eyes are about to go yellow any minute, and beneath the awe Dean feels at hearing her talk for the first time, he's constricting with panic because holy shit he's gotta get his kids out of here before Emma goes full on _Teen Wolf_-

But the fake manor butler who had stayed inside the room with them and barked with evil laughter with the Ghost Host is plucking Dean's shoulder sympathetically now, nodding toward the door he's opened up with its green EXIT sign glowing above it. Dean scoops up Emma, who's finely trembling despite how fiercely she'd shouted. He follows Cas outside, shooting a distracted grateful look at the butler as the man closes the door behind them.

They emerge out of a dark, dusty-smelling hallway back into a spot in Frontierland they'd passed only a while ago. Dean blinks against the abrupt sunlight, pushing the bill of his cap down further over his face, and looks over at Claire.

It's only now that they're out of the dimness of the mansion that he sees how flushed her face is, too pink and shiny against Cas's shoulder to be just from crying. He puts his free hand, the one not holding Emma, to her forehead. Claire hiccups at the touch, turning her face into Cas's neck.

"You feel pretty hot, Claire." Dean pulls his hand away, mentally kicking himself. "Are you thirsty?"

She shakes her head against Cas's neck.

Cas smoothes a hand down her hair. "I would like something to drink," he says. "Will you come with me to get it, Claire?"

He doesn't wait for her to answer. Just exchanges a glance with Dean, who says, "Wait," and digs in the bag to hand Cas the bottle of sunscreen. Cas takes it solemnly with one hand, wedging it into one of his back pockets, and begins toward the old-style general store a few hundred feet away and the set of kiddy sprinklers set up to look like a watering post in front of it.

Dean watches them go, feeling crappy about his parenting abilities. He should've remembered to re-apply the girls' sunscreen after lunch. And made sure that Claire drank enough at lunch. And thought twice about the Haunted Mansion. Seriously, what kind of idiot is he?

He looks down at Emma, and only then realizes how tightly he's gripping her, that she's trying to slither down out of his grip. He lowers her to the ground. She immediately takes a step away from him.

Dean wets his lips. "You okay, kiddo?"

She squints up at him uncertainly. Somewhere along the line she's lost her mini sunglasses, and the clumsy braid he'd managed has come half undone, hair sticking sweatily to the back of her neck. She looks hot and miserable, and Dean takes off his hat immediately, thwacking it against his thigh as if that'll dry the sweat from it so he can give it to her. "C'mere, let's get in the shade."

Emma hesitates a minute before following, trotting after him to the pitiful patch of shade under a tree near the Thunder Mountain exit. There's a big rock there, and he plops down on it, pats the space next to him.

Emma doesn't sit. Dean sighs and wrestles the thermos of watered-down tea left from lunch out of their bag, wets Emma's teething washcloth with it. He holds it, dripping, over the ground, and looks at her. "Emma. Please?"

It's another long moment before she shuffles close enough for him to reach her. He wipes the washcloth down her sweaty face, the back of her neck, his eyes on her skin. The whole time he feels the weight of her stare on him, as heavy and intent as Cas's ever was, like she's hungry for something from him, waiting for some sign.

He gets to her hands, still sticky with pink sugar. He wipes her fingernails first, so small, and works his way down her kid-sized fingers to her chubby palm, turning it over to get the little crevices there. Presses his lips together when he sees the Harmonia brand glaring up at him from her wrist, red and tender still.

He looks away from it. Up at her. "You were really brave in there, you know that?"

Emma doesn't look away. "We supposed protect sisters."

Dean smiles, a little, looks back down at the mark on her little wrist. Presses the damp washcloth over it, gently. When he looks up again, Emma is staring at him fiercely.

"I protect Claire." Her voice is half trepidation, like she thinks she'll have to fight him.

Dean closes his hand gently around her wrist. "You protect Claire," he agrees. Her hand relaxes in his. "And I protect Emma."

Her eyes flick back up to him from his hand. He holds them steadily. "Okay?"

She studies him uncertainly, lip drawn beneath her teeth. There's a drop of sweat trickling from under her hairline toward her eye, but Dean waits until she nods slowly to put his thumb to her face to wipe it away.

"Where Mama?" Emma whispers as he pulls his hand back. Her eyes had shuddered shut when he touched her face; now they're open again, staring at him. "She coming for me?"

Dean aches. He touches his thumb beneath her eye again, gently.

Emma shuffles closer. "Should have killed witch man. Matriarch be mad. Punish Emma." It's like a plug's been pulled out, freeing the rush of words. "But she say I see Mama again. This...test?"

"Emma," Dean says. "No-"

"She say she let me back. She say-" Her voice breaks. "If do right." Struggles. "If Emma..._be_ right. Mama want me again."

"Emma." Dean's on his knees, cupping her face. "Emma, your mom wants you-"

Her eyes filling with tears. "Mama _hunt_ me."

Fuck. _Fuck_.

"This not what I supposed to be," she whispers. Her tears are trickling over his thumbs. "I not right."

Dean doesn't know what to do. Pulls her into him and presses her face under his and holds her tight. "Emma. You are right. You are perfect. There's nothing wrong with you." He says it all, and knows none of it is enough, because she's shaking her head against him, holding onto her wrist, cradling like it's something separate from her, a baby she needs to protect.

"Wanna be like Mama," she hiccups. "Wanna be like Mama, Dean."

Dean pulls back. Holds Emma's shoulder with one hand and curls his fingers around hers with the other, around the little fist she'd shaken at the disembodied voice in the Haunted Mansion. He holds it up to her and shakes it gently, like she had.

"Strong like Mama," he tells her. "Brave like Mama."

"Not enough." Tears are still spilling out of her eyes, off her spiked lashes. "Matriarch say not enough, Emma."

Dean leans forward until his forehead is against hers. Makes their eyes meet, her eyelashes hot and wet against his. "Dad says enough." He cups her face. "Dad says more than enough, Emma."

Emma cries harder. Dean stays there, holding her, their foreheads together as she cries, cotton candy breath and bubbles of snot and her hair still smelling of ketchup, until she's fallen asleep against him, quavering wet breaths shuddered into his collar.

He holds her for a few more minutes after that, feeling the thud of her heart slow, subside. He sifts the sweaty hair from the back of her neck. Then he picks her up carefully and pushes to his feet. A woman who is wheeling a stroller over to sit in the shade gives him a sympathetic look.

"Meltdown?" she says knowingly.

Dean smiles wistfully. "Something like that."

- o -

Cas is examining floppy hats at a gift shop in Liberty Square, a sleeping Claire draped over his back. He looks as solemn as Dean feels, mouth drawn beneath his aviators.

"They are tired," he murmurs as Dean draws even with him. "Shall we leave?"

Despite his expression, his voice is wistful, reluctant even. It pulls a smile from Dean despite everything.

"Not yet," he says. "I have another idea."

- o -

The ferry is far more relaxing than the monorail. It's practically empty, so Dean and Cas lay the girls out on one of the benches on the deck and stand against the bow. It's late afternoon, the sun easing its way toward the horizon, its glare gentled just enough that Dean takes off his hat to let the wind push through his hair. Cas takes off his sunglasses as well and leans against the side, closing his eyes. Dean pushes his fingers through Cas's hair, idly, feeling the dampness of the sweat there. "Hard to believe it's January, huh?"

Cas makes a lazy noise, leans his head into Dean's hand. Dean smiles, rubs circles with the pads of his fingertips.

"I'm not sure exactly how the girls intended this spell to serve as a birthday gift," Cas says after a few minutes. "Thus far it has been predominantly terrifying and guilt-inducing."

Dean doesn't entirely disagree. But he presses his nose against the back of Cas's head and says, "What about the Disney Movies? You liked the Disney movies."

Cas is quiet for a moment. "Scuttle was amusing. And Iago."

"Ia-seriously? You liked _Iago_?" Dean pulls back to look around at Cas. "Nobody likes Iago! He's a bad guy, Cas."

"I didn't say I liked him," Cas says stubbornly. "I said he was amusing." He's quiet for a moment. "As is your striking resemblance to Rapunzel-"

"Okay, now you're just trying to make me mad," Dean says, and slips a hand up Cas's chest to hook his fingers into Cas's armpit in retaliation. Cas jerks and clamps his arms tight to his side but can't contain the half-gasp of laughter that chokes out of him. Dean crows in victory and worms his hands under Cas's biceps, tickling harder as Cas convulses in his arms from the effort not to laugh.

"Stop-stop," he gasps, and Dean tickles harder, until Cas finally bursts out into laughter, his gums wide and pink as he doubles over. Dean grins and lets go of him, enjoying the sight. It's so rarely that anyone ever makes Cas laugh aloud like this that Dean always feels like something special when he manages it. Usually it's in bed, but-

A thunk comes from behind them, and then a cry. Cas's laughter dies, and they turn to see Claire scrambling upright on the bench, hair mussed, looking guilty. At her feet, Emma is scooting backward holding her mouth, eyes wide and unhappy. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened, considering Claire's tendency to kick in her sleep and Emma's tendency to wriggle around until she's upside down in her bed-what had he been thinking, putting them on the same bench?

"I didn't mean to kick her!" Claire exclaims as they come closer. "I'm really sorry, Emma." Her lower lip wobbles as she draws her knees into her chest, like that'll keep her feet from kicking Emma in the mouth again.

Cas sits beside Emma. "Emma, will you let me see?"

Emma sniffs in a quick breath and brings her hand away from her mouth. Cas peers inside, squinting. "Your lips are not split. Your teeth appear intact. Say ahh."

Emma stick out her tongue obediently, though she doesn't make the sound. Dean wonders wistfully if he'll get to hear her voice again before the girls turn back.

"Your frenulum appears intact," Cas says, as Dean chokes on a snort. "This is good. Does it hurt?"

Emma shakes her head bravely. She's clearly lying, and Claire looks stricken. Then Claire's eyes widen with an _I know!_ look, and she scrambles off her side of the bench to run over to Emma. She smacks a kiss onto Emma's lip. "There! All better!"

Emma stares at her. Dean has to swallow a snicker because he's pretty sure that's a _what the fuck?_look.

Claire puts her hands on her hips. "When I get hurt, my mama kisses it better," she says bossily. But there's a studied carelessness to her voice, and tension in her face, that makes Dean think it's probably best for everyone involved if they change the topic from moms.

"Holy crap, look!" he exclaims abruptly. "Was that Ariel?"

Claire freezes like a predator that's scented prey. "Where?"

Dean points toward the bow. "Over there!"

Claire grabs Emma's hand and drags them both to the prow.

They spend the rest of the ferry ride to Epcot peering over the side, wide-eyed and shrieking every time they think they see something in the water.

- o -

Dean puts Emma on his shoulders again as they disembark from the ferry at the Epcot dock, but Claire latches onto Cas's hand, swinging it back and forth between them as she trots alongside him.

"I want blue clams when I get big, Cas," Dean hears her informing him as they join the line to enter the park, Dean reaching into his pocket to hand Cas his ticket.

For a minute, this makes as much sense to Dean as it does to Cas, which is to say not at all. "I don't understand that reference," he says, and cracks up at his own joke, making Emma grab his ears to stay upright, which would've made him wince if he wasn't laughing so hard at the sour look Cas shoots him.

Then Claire's meaning hits him and he starts laughing harder, because she's talking about the shells Ariel wears over her boobs. Oh God, he can't wait till they're big again, Emma is going to explode with laughter when she hears this story.

He tries to explain the joke to Cas, who still looks confused. All he gets is a squint from Cas and an impatient look from the dude manning the ticket scanners. Emma pats his head imperiously from her perch; she's clearly been learning from Claire.

"Sorry," she tells the ticket man, still patting Dean's head. "My dad weird."

Now it's Cas's turn to smile.

- o -

Epcot is a whirlwind of color and costumes, breezy and cool where Magic Kingdom was sweltering, as breezes come off the water and the sky begins to darken toward dusk. Dean's just tired enough himself from their day for everything to become a bit of a blur, laughing as the girls scream in the cold fake caves of the Norway ride and taking pictures of Cas wearing the Viking helmet with blonde braids in the gift shop once they get off the ride, laughing so hard his sides hurt as Sam texts back WTF? at the picture Dean sends him.

Then it's off to Mexico to get pictures of Cas in a sombrero, and then in a fez in Morocco as Claire tries to convince them she needs a belly-dancing outfit. In France, Emma gets freaked out by the mime who takes a shine to her, following her around the fountain and mimicking her until Cas picks her up and glares the mime away. The effect is a bit strange considering he's still wearing the Viking helmet Dean insisted they buy, and Claire and Dean are in hysterics as Emma eyes them both balefully from over Cas's shoulder.

They get burgers at The American Adventure for dinner, where Emma insists on sitting next to Dean with a pointed look at the cup of ketchup sitting next to Claire's fries. By then it's full-dark, lanterns and kids' light-up toys glowing around them in the outdoor eating area as a voice comes over the speakers to announce that the IllumiNations fireworks will be beginning in forty-five minutes.

Dean charges Cas and the girls with finding them a place to sit and heads off himself to procure them some beignets from France for the show. When he comes back, nearly orgasming just from the delicious scent of the fried dough he's holding, Emma and Claire are crawling all over the decorative rocks they found to sit on overlooking the lake, and then all over Dean and Cas, too, as Dean plops down, because jeez, it's like the darker it gets the more energy they get. Claire scrambles into his lap and then out of it, and then back to it again, bouncing as she grabs his wrist to look at his watch. "How many more minutes, Dean? Twenty more minutes, Emma!" Then she jumps back to the ground to dance with Emma and then into Cas's lap, and repeats the cycle all over again.

When one of the street vendors strides by shouting, "Glow necklaces! Swords fit for princes and princesses!" Cas waves him over and totally spoils the girls, buying them like three light-up necklaces and a light-up sword each. Which Claire promptly uses to get into a sword fight with the family of boys a few feet away, as Emma jabs the air experimentally with her own, touching the blunt glowing tip with her finger and looking a little unimpressed when it doesn't draw blood.

An idea occurs to Dean. He crams the last of the beignets in his mouth and runs after the vendor, pulling out his wallet. When he returns to Camp Rock, he's got two more swords glowing in his hand, one blue and the other green.

"Should we show 'em how it's done, kiddo?" he says to Emma, tossing the spare to Cas, who catches it with a raised eyebrow and quick flash of a smile, blue in the glow of the sword.

Emma charges him. Dean sidesteps it, gets thwapped on the hip as she whirls on a dime, catching him. _Fuck_, his kid is good. "You got me!" he shouts, and staggers to the ground theatrically, holding his side.

She looks puzzled for a minute, then laughs.

"Hey! I wanna do that!" Claire's returned, panting. Her eyes are greedy on Emma's sword.

"I teach you," Emma says, and Claire doesn't look at all taken aback by hearing Emma talk to her. She just holds up her sword and gets into a ridiculous ninja pose. "Hi-yah!"

Grinning, Dean glances back at Cas, whose gaze slides from the girls to meet his. Dean quirks a brow and twirls his sword in his fingers. It's an invitation and a challenge.

Cas smiles, his teeth flashing briefly blue in the glow from his own sword. Then he's blurring toward Dean with the insane speed he kept even as a human, and Dean's ducking under his sword and parrying as he spins, jumping the leg Cas sweeps out to knock his feet from under him and darting out of his reach. Cas pushes after him, that quick stalk that's always been too inexorable to attempt a feint against, so Dean grins and surges forward instead, slamming their swords together with a stupid crash of plastic and batteries rattling in the cheap handles.

Cas backsteps, swings his sword in a wide flashy arc that confuses Dean until he realizes that they've gathered an audience, people pausing on the sidewalk and in the doorways of shops to watch. Dean grins and deflects Cas's strike, just as showy, then diving under his arm in a strike he knows Cas will sidestep and whirling to catch him the same way Emma did him a few minutes ago. Cas is faster than Emma, though, moving just in time, and the dance starts all over again.

They don't stop until the intercom announces, "Ladies and gentlemen, the IllumiNations show will be starting in ten minutes!" Cas lowers his sword, panting, and Dean does the same, swiping his hand across his sweaty face as people break into cheers and clapping around them. Dean grins and bows, panting, only to get nearly bowled off his feet as Claire throws herself onto his back, shouting, "That was awesome!" and nearly bonking him in the head with her sword as she climbs up to hang from his neck.

"Right?" he says, and hefts her onto his shoulders as he turns to find Emma. She's standing next to Cas, who's been cornered by a whole family talking in rapid French. One of the little girls, her hair in braids, is saying something to Emma, waving her hands, and Emma's grinning shyly back as she holds tight to Cas's hand.

That's the moment the first firework shoots into the sky and bursts, splashing pink light across her face, arcing across the reflective surface of her eyes. She looks up, craning her head back, and Dean reaches out to ruffle her hair as he comes to a stop beside her and Cas, squeezing Claire's skinny ankle with the other as she shouts with delight above his head. Emma cranes her head further back to look up at him, upside down, and he grins, shouts above the noise, "Hey, Cas, you wanna give the midget a lift?"

Cas turns from his new friends to look, as another set of gold sparks race up into the sky above the lake. "Of course. Emma?"

Emma hands him her sword. Cas takes it with a barely hidden smile, handing it up to Claire, who shouts in more delight and begins to wave both her and Emma's swords back and forth above her head. Then he lifts Emma into his arms, hefting her so that her head is level with Dean's shoulder.

Dean raises a brow. "That's all?" he shouts over the music.

Cas looks slightly terrified, his _Dean, don't leave me in this den of inequity alone_ expression. "I don't wish to drop her."

Dean rolls his eyes, because Cas had been carrying Claire on his shoulders before, no problem, and Claire is way scarier than Emma. "Dude, believe me, she is _not_ going to let you drop her," he shouts. "These kids'll kick you in the face before they let you drop them, watch!" He leans backward abruptly, and sure enough, Claire's sneaker nearly breaks his nose as she flails, and then he's got fingernails under his upper lip as she grabs in a panic at his face for any grip she can get.

"Dean!" she shrieks, but she's also laughing, so Dean grins at Cas with his upper lip still pulled away from his gums by five-year-old fingers. "See?"

Cas looks at Emma. Emma squints back. Then a sword taps Cas in the back of the head. "Up!" Claire orders, and Cas carefully lifts Emma onto his shoulders.

Another of the huge red fireworks goes off. It's so loud that Dean nearly misses hearing Emma's "Thanks, Cas" and Cas's grave "You're welcome, princess."

Claire doesn't. "Emma's not a princess!" Her voice is indignant. "She's a knight! We're both knights! Right, Emma?"

"Both," Emma says decisively, and holds out her hand for her sword.

Dean and Cas exchange amused glances with each other, and Dean slides a hand up the small of Cas's back, feeling the damp places where he sweated through it during their sword fight. Cas leans into him, still keeping a careful grasp on Emma's knees, and above them Claire starts singing "I'll Make a Man Out of You" in complete discord with the instrumental music being blasted out of the speakers. After a minute Emma joins in, more a shout than a song, her and Claire getting louder and louder like they're trying to outdo each other, and people are turning around to look at them, and Cas's shoulders are shaking with laughter against Dean, and Dean's grinning and trying to hold onto Claire as she waves her glowing sword with more and more abandon, and fuck if this night isn't going to be one of the greatest hits in his heaven.


	7. Chapter 7

**a/n: **Thank you tremendously to everyone who has read these! This is the last section in the Disney Princess arc, but there will be more HFK ficlets coming afterward. If you want more stories about Emma and Claire, head over to my AO3, where I write under the same penname as here. Thanks again!

**Warning**: This is one of those cases where Dean's not always a good role model. You should _not_ peel sunburnt skin.

The next morning, Dean turns over under the covers, cracks one eyelid open, and promptly groans and pulls the blanket over his head again.

"Oh my god," he mumbles. "I feel like a drank a liquor store."

"That's not funny," Cas mutters into his pillow. But he slides a hand across the mattress to Dean's arm. "You're hot."

Dean doesn't even have the energy to leer, just winces at Cas's touch. "I think I should've put more sunscreen on."

Cas sits up and eases the hotel comforter off of them. Dean can tell from the way his eyes go wide and startled that he must look pretty bad. He looks down at himself and sees the very clear line separating the pale skin that was covered by his t-shirt sleeve to the angry pink skin that wasn't.

Cas traces very gentle circles around his eyes. "I can see where your sunglasses were."

Dean groans. "Man, that's what the hat was for!"

Grumbling, he eases himself up and swings his legs off the bed to go take a shower. The digital clock on the nightstand says 7:04 a.m., but in the next bed Claire and Emma are already awake, their heads sharing a pillow as they intently watch something on the laptop.

"What, you guys didn't get enough Disney yesterday?" he teases as he hobbles past them for the bathroom.

"Sshh," Emma says without looking away from the screen. Dean huffs as Cas hides a smile and gets out of bed to start making coffee.

Bits of skin come off Dean's arms as he towels himself dry after a shower set to the very lowest water pressure available. He grimaces at them.

"Who wants to peel their lobster dad?" he says when he emerges back into the room a few minutes later, rubbing his hair dry. Claire's moved to the other bed with the laptop, where Cas slid back under the covers and is frowning as he looks at the laptop screen. He appears to be trying to give Claire a French braid.

"This is not as easy as the directions claim," he says.

"Keep trying," Claire says, patting his knee under the covers. She looks at Dean and wrinkles her nose. "Ewwwww."

"I'd think a girl in Godzilla pajamas could handle a little dead skin," he mutters, because Claire's wearing the pajamas she'd convinced Cas to let her get from the boys' section. Like many things about Claire, this decision had made him blink, but it's not all that much more unexpected than the bright pink Jonas Brothers nightgown Emma had decided to wear, so whatever.

He turns toward Emma. She looks intrigued despite herself, looking away from the cartoon now playing almost inaudibly on the TV. He sits on the foot of her and Claire's bed. "You just peel it, see?" He peels off a piece of the white skin. "Like this. It doesn't hurt."

Emma crawls out from under the covers to kneel behind him. "Doesn't?"

"Nope."

She goes to work, tiny fingers tentative. Sunlight is streaming through the thin curtains, and the digital clock between the beds says it's barely half past seven. Dean gets Cas to toss him the theme parks guidebook from the hotel lobby and leafs through it as the room sinks into a comfortable silence, quiet and peaceful like a cocoon.

"We could do Universal," he says. "It's got that new Harry Potter place, Sam'd shi-crap his pants if he found out we went without him, wouldn't he, Em? Or here's Sea World, with those killer whales, I bet you'd like those, Cas."

"Can we pet sting rays there?" Claire demands. Emma snorts at her, which makes Claire stick out her tongue. "Cas, Emma's being mean to me."

"Emma, be nice," Cas says absently, squinting at Claire's hair intently. He has a bobby pin held between his teeth.

Emma rolls her eyes over to Dean in a clear _Are you going to let this unfairness stand_? Dean ruffles her hair and goes back to leafing through the book. If they head to Tampa, there's a park with cheetahs and elephants and stuff, so maybe if they do Sea World today and then drive to Busch Gardens tomorrow-

His phone buzzes on the nightstand. He reaches behind him absently, wincing a little at the pull of his skin, and answers without looking at the ID. "Yeah?"

"Good news," drawls Portia's voice. "We found the reversal spell."

- o -

Cas closes the laptop when Dean lets himself back into the hotel room. The conversation with Portia was short, only five minutes tops, but Dean feels like he's aged five years, all of a sudden. He looks at Cas, and Cas slides out from under the covers. "Claire, Emma, please go brush your teeth."

Dean watches the girls look back at them curiously as they go to the sink set along the hotel room's back wall, Claire looking as apprehensive as Emma for once. Then he looks back at Cas.

"Portia and James called."

It's not a question. Dean leans back against the dinky table between the bed and the window, examines the way his worn boots look against Cas's bare feet on the dark carpet.

"They found a way to reverse the spell?"

"Yeah." Dean pushes away from the table, can't help looking back at the sink where Claire and Emma are on their tiptoes against the counter to examine Emma's teeth in the mirror. "But look, Cas, I was thinking-maybe we should just wait for the spell to wear off normally."

Cas is frowning. "Is the reversal dangerous?"

"Well-no. But..would it really be so bad for them to stay like this a little longer? I mean-we haven't even gone to Sea World yet, or taken Emma to one of those dumb Plucky places with the ball pits-"

Cas is still frowning. "You said those places were dangerous and unsanitary."

"Yeah, well-that doesn't mean everybody shouldn't still go in one once!" Dean says. "It's a rite of passage, man. We shouldn't flip the spell until we've taken them at least once."

Castiel studies him for a moment. "Dean."

Dean doesn't look at him. Looks at the girls instead, at Claire showing Emma how to give herself a toothpaste beard with the foam from her toothbrush.

Cas reaches up to take Dean's hands. He pulls Dean to where he still sits on the edge of the bed. Dean goes unwillingly, letting himself be pulled onto his knees between Cas's, lets his eyes be drawn back to Cas's. Still watching him, Cas weaves their fingers together. He presses them to his knees and brings his forehead to Dean's. "If we waited until we could give them all the things they missed out," he murmurs, "they would never grow up."

Dean closes his eyes. He tightens his fingers around Cas's. When he pulls away a moment later, Emma and Claire are watching them from the foot of the other bed.

He pushes to his feet. "You guys figure out what's happening?"

"You're turning us back." Claire's face is solemn, like she's already started turning into the Claire she was, that she will be.

"Do you want to?" Cas asks gently.

Claire looks at Emma. Emma looks back.

Claire turns around. "We're ready."

Cas goes to his suitcase to find the spell powder he confiscated from James. Claire goes to crouch next to him, side pressed tight against his as he puts a palm gently to her head.

Dean looks at Emma. She's staring back, and he walks to her, crouches to take her hand and curl it into a fist inside his.

"Don't forget," he says, eyes searching hers, not sure how much she is going to remember once the spell is reversed. "Okay?"

She stares back. For a minute it feels like they're memorizing each other, feels like watching Sam in those last moments before the Hell Hounds tore through the doors in New Harmony.

"Not forget," she finally says. She takes her other hand and puts it over her chest. "In here."

Dean looks at her a moment. Then he pulls her into a bear hug. "No more Disney movies for you," he says into her hair. "You're getting cheesy."

She bites gently down on his wrist, the way she'd done to Benny. "Try stop me," she retorts, and that's his girl.

- o -

Reversing the spell is pretty simple, when it comes down to it. Dean draws a design on the floor with the spell powder as Cas coaxes the girls into the center of it. Emma's got her chin up, staring down at the lines of powder like she's daring them to spring up at her so she can kick their ass. Claire stands close to her, and after Cas steps out of the circle, she clutches Emma's hand so tightly their hands turn white.

Dean stares at Emma. Feels like the question is burning out of his eyes. _Are you sure?_

Emma nods.

Cas takes Dean's phone, and reads the spell Portia texted them aloud.

- o -

Claire coughs into Emma's shoulder blades as the pale blue smoke billows up around them. Emma blinks against it, feeling her own eyes water as she squints through it. She feels the vessels inside them itching to shift to let the blood into the vessels that will turn them yellow, help her see through the smoke; blinks it away, and a moment later, the smoke has dissipated like cotton candy dissolving on her tongue, and Cas and Dean are standing at the edge of the spell design, looking at them. Dean's face is guarded, Cas's as composed as ever, and Emma looks away from both of them, looks at the TV with its Danny Phantom cartoon still playing instead.

Behind her, Claire's still coughing. "Oh my _god_," she says. "What did you guys do?"

"Us?" Dean crosses his arms. "Try again-how many years do you guys think you're gonna be grounded for this stunt?" He glances back at Cas. "What do you think, Cas? Fifty? I'm thinking fifty."

"What are you talking about?" Claire presses her fingertips to Emma's shoulder blade before she moves away, a wordless _let me handle this_. "What happened? Where are we?"

Dean eyes her. The indecision is clear in the furrow of his brows-is Claire faking it? Or do she and Emma really not remember what happened after the spell was cast?

"Nope," he says finally. "I've got your number now, Claire. You're a sneaky little ninja when you wanna be." He's breaking into a smile, though, like that's a good thing, and it's only as Claire relaxes that Emma realizes she had even tensed at all.

"Not a ninja, Dean," and in her voice is a hint of that plaintive five-year-old who had dragged Emma around by the hand and stuck ketchup in her hair. "A knight, remember?"

"Right." Dean's still smiling. "A knight, I forgot. Sorry. Make a man out of you and all that."

His smile slips as he looks over at Emma. Emma realizes she's made the mistake of watching them and quickly flicks her eyes away again, catching her own reflection in the mirror. The nightgown her little self had been wearing had made the transition with her, and now she's wearing a pink nightgown with puffy sleeves and ruffles all along the bottom. Her hair's matted but still in the sloppy braid Dean had put it in the day before, as he'd picked her up and set her on the bathroom counter before combing gently through her hair with his hands, and it's stupid how badly she wants that again.

"Now that you are back to normal size, I imagine you will be needing your normal clothes again," Cas says. "Claire, would you help me bring your duffels in from the car?"

Claire heaves a long-suffering sigh and goes to follow him out the door, pulling a flannel from Dean's bag on over her uncomfortably-tight-looking Godzilla pajamas as she goes. Neither she nor Cas look back at Emma as they head down the breezeway down the stairs to the parking lot, Claire saying something in a low voice that Cas responds to just as inaudibly, and Emma doesn't realize she's fingering her gums uncomfortably as she watches them until Dean's voice says from behind her, "They feel okay?"

She turns, confused, before seeing his eyes are on her mouth. Her hands drops. "Oh. Yeah. They're fine." Falls silent, then adds belatedly, "Thanks."

Dean pushes his hands into his pockets. "I didn't really do anything. Cas and Benny found the lavender stuff."

Emma nods. "Yeah." Turns back to face the window and watch Cas and Claire opening the Impala's trunk. Then she rubs her elbow, sucks in half a breath. "Sorry. Guess I was kind of a crybaby when I was little, huh?"

Dean's quiet for a minute, coming up beside her to look down at the parking lot too. Then he says, "Nope," and leans his shoulder to hers. "Bravest kid I ever met."

Emma snorts, squeezing her elbows hard. Her mouth is trembling, and Dean slides an arm around her, pulling her head under his chin. She leans into him, and in the ghost of her shaky breath against his neck he can feel the little girl she was, the one he knew and the one he never got to.

"There's a reason I left," she tells his shirt. "When I-you know."

Dean smoothes a hand down her hair. She still smells like ketchup and sunscreen and the blackberry tea he'd wiped her face with, and he wants to hold her like he did then, cradle her face in his hands and tell her how proud he is of her.

But after a minute, she pulls away, clearing her throat. "Anyway, um-"

"I got you something."

She looks up. Dean shrugs a little, self-consciously, and moves past her to the plastic Disney bag sitting at the little table near the radiator unit. It's dumb, really, a gold plastic crown with a stupidly fake-looking jewel in the middle of it. "I was going to give it to you while you were still little."

Emma sniffs and hitches on a smirk. "Probably would've fit better then," she says as he pushes it into her hair. It's too small, meant for a little girl, tilting off her head.

"Nah, looks dashing this way," he says. "Like a pirate."

Emma perks up. "Pirates have tattoos."

"No."

"But-"

"Nope."

"Deaaan," she whines.

"Emmaaaaa," he mimics.

"Looks like things are back to normal, Cas," comes Claire's voice, and they look up to see she's coming in the door with her duffel over her shoulder. "They're bitching at each other again."

"Oh good," Cas says, deadpan. He hands Emma her duffel. He pauses in front of her for a moment, studying her, then reaches out with one hand and straightens the plastic crown on her head. "It suits you."

Claire cocks an eyebrow. "Where's my crown?"

"Godzilla doesn't get a crown," Emma says.

"That's because Godzilla _takes_ his crown," Claire says, and her smirk is the only warning Emma gets before she lunges. Emma shrieks and vaults onto the bed, scrambles off it again as Claire grabs for her, races around Cas and then into the bathroom, slamming the door shut and throwing herself against it as Claire tries to shove it open.

"No!" she wails in laughter as Claire makes growling sounds.

Dean grins at Cas. Cas's mouth hooks up at the corner back.

Eventually Claire tires of ramming the door with her shoulder, leans against it and looks at Cas and Dean instead. "Well?" she says. "Did you like it?"

"My birthday gift?" Cas sits on the edge of the bed, taking a sip from the coffee from the machine on the nightstand. He's still in his pajama pants and t-shirt, pulls his leg under him to sit on. "It was the best I have ever had. Thank you, girls."

"You've only had like two birthdays," Claire says. "It's not like we had stiff competition in the Best Present Ever category."

Cas smiles. "That changes little." He leans into Dean when Dean plops down on the bed next to him. "I am curious, however. What were your initial intentions for the spell?"

Claire pushes away from the bathroom door, glancing back at it as Emma cracks it open to peer out. "I thought it'd be nice for you guys to get a chance to be kids. Cas never got the chance, and..." She glances back at Emma again.

Emma opens the door the rest of the way, leaning her cheek against the door jamb as she avoids all their eyes. "Sam said Dean didn't get much of one either."

There's a whole Sarlacc pit of angst there that Dean's going to jetpack over. He leans back on his hands. "_I'm _ exactly was gonna take care of kid!Dean and Cas?"

The girls' expressions turn positively wicked. "Only the best and most qualified babysitters in the country, of course," Emma says.

"What, you two?"

"No way," Claire says, wrinkling her nose. "Jody volunteered. But Garth called first dibs."

"Krissy wanted a weekend with you, too," Emma adds. "She said something about tea parties?"

Dean groans. "Krissy was in on this, and she didn't try to stop you?"

"Charlie did," Claire says. "But when we promised her she could dress you both up at Stormtroopers and tape it, she supported our decision."

Dean shakes his head to hide his grin. "Of course she did."

"Charlie has a tattoo," Emma says pointedly. Dean ignores her.

"Speaking of," Cas says, and crosses to his suitcase, pulling out another Disney bag. "I procured something for your next Moondor campaign, Dean."

Emma and Claire burst into laughter when they see what it is: a blonde _Tangled_ wig, so long it drags from Cas's arm onto the carpet.

"For the Queen's favorite handmaiden," Cas says solemnly.

"This handmaiden is gonna kick your ass," Dean says, he but inclines his head forward so Cas can fit the wig onto his head. He tosses the long tresses over his shoulder, hamming it up, until Claire and Emma are both red and crying with laughter, and Cas's smile is the huge irrepressible one that shows his gums.

"Wait, wait!" Claire cries, running to Cas's suitcase in the corner. She pulls out Cas's Viking helmet and plops it on his head as Emma dives for her phone, managing to click a photo of princess!Dean and Viking!Cas and text it to Sam before Dean manages to wrestle the phone away from her, bellowing that she's grounded for the next five hundred years and desperately trying to figure out how to un-send the message, which only makes Emma and Claire laugh harder.

- o -

The dads go to pick up breakfast while the girls take showers so that they can check out of the hotel and be on the road by eleven. When Emma comes out, rubbing a towel over her wet hair and trying to figure out if she still smells of ketchup or it's just her imagination, Claire's at the sink, combing out her own wet hair.

She hands Emma her brush, but doesn't let go when Emma takes it. Emma glances away from her reflection to see that Claire's looking at her wrist.

She lets go of Emma's brush and turns Emma's hand over. The Mark of Harmonia is back to being a raised pink-white scar, not the angry red brand it was when they were younger. Claire doesn't say anything, just looks at it.

Emma shrugs, a little. "Guess you were right about being the older sister," she says with a little smile.

Claire finally looks up. Then glances away, to her own reflection in the mirror. "I was like the brattiest kid ever." She sounds a little amused but mostly displeased, frustrated with herself.

"I thought you were pretty awesome," Emma says. Hitches her shoulder a little, awkwardly, because she can remember it more clearly than she should be able to, the trust; how it had felt to look over and know that Claire was there, every time, talking or eating or tricking people into giving Emma milkshakes. It kind of feels like Claire's hand had barely let go of hers that whole time, and now her fingers keep flexing, palm too empty and dry without a sweaty palm holding onto it.

Claire breaks into a rare smile. "Eh. I guess you were an okay little sister."

Emma grins back. "Fuck you, I was an awesome little sister."

"You wouldn't let me stick fries up your nose."

"You put ketchup in my hair!"

"I did worse than that," Claire says in satisfaction. "I let Dean put you in a Jonas Brothers nightgown."

"I've changed my mind," Emma says. "You're not Nicholas Cage, you're that lame prince in The Little Mermaid who couldn't even recognize the awesome chick who rescued him."

"I'm sorry, are you casting yourself as the princess who wore clams on her boobs?"

"At least my boobs aren't so small clams could cover them."

"What a short memory you have, Emma, I think you're forgetting who knows where a picture of you in the Jonas Brother nightgown is." She holds up her phone.

Emma stares at the picture on its screen in horror.

Claire smirks. "Look at that. Did I _clam_ you up?"

Emma punches her in the boob.


End file.
